PARIS  OF  TO-DAY 

BY    RICHARD    WHITEING 


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WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS    BY 
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Copyright,  1900,  by 
The  Century  Co. 


The  DeVinne  Press, 


il^onteiitd 

PAGE 

THE   GOVERNMENTAL   MACHINE        .        .         .         i 
PARIS  OF   THE   FAUBOURGS    ....  49 

FASHIONABLE   PARIS 93 

PARISIAN    PASTI.MES \}\ 

THE    LIFE   OF   THE    BOULEVARDS       .         .         .171 
ARTISTIC   PARIS 21s 


Joidt  of  cJlludttationj 


PAGB 

Flower  Fete  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne      .      Frontispiece 

Palace  of  Electricity  and  Illuminated  Fountain     .  xiv 

A  Pensioner  of  the  Invalides        ....  2 

Arrival  of  the  President  of  the  Republic.    Outside 

THE  Hotel  de  Ville,  during  a  Municipal  Ball       .  s 

The   Place   de    la   Concorde,   looking   toward  the 

Seine 6 

A  Ball  at  the  Elvsee  Palace           ....  7 

Morning  Scene  in  a  Paris  Police  Court        .        .  9 

The    Longchamp   Review   on   the    Fourteenth  of 

July 1=; 

'•Old  Paris,  "  as  seen  from  the  Seine  at  Night  .  19 

A  Civil  Marriage               2^ 


The    PatsiDENT    (Felix   Faure)    bestowing   the    Hat 

UPON  A  Cardinal 33 

The    Downeall  oe   a    Ministry   in  the  Chamber  of 

L)EPUTii;s )g 

Evening  at  the  Great  Gate  oe  the  Exposition        .  46 

The  Canal  Port  oe  La  Villettk  .         .         .        .  31 

Scene  at  a  Creche             54 

Toy-makers ^7 

WiNE-TRL'CKS    AT    THE    WiNE    MaRKET                .            .            .  t)0 

The  Afternoon  Bite  (Working-men  at  a  Brasserie)  6^ 

The  Exhibition  Gate  opposite  the  Invai.iues          .  66 

Collecting  Customs  at  the  Barriers        .        .        .  bq 

Early    Morning    Scene    at    the     Central     Market 

(Halles  Centrales) 7s 

Daughters  oe  the  I^opi.e  leaving  a  Factory  .        .  81 

A  Funeral  of  the  Eighth  Class    ....  87 

A  Bird's-eye  View  of  the  Exposition  Grounds        .  qo 

Five  O'Clock  in  a  Private  House  of  the   Faubourg 

St. -Germain 9, 

Children  of  the  Rich qS 

The  Charity  Bazaar      .         .        .        .         .        .  101 


Club  dhs  Panni-:s  (Ci.ub  oi-  thi.  "Hard-L'p")  watch- 
ing THH    l^AKADl'    OK    FASHION Io8 

Thb  Fauuock  AT  -iHi:  AuTi-.uiL  Racf.-coukse,  Bois  DE 

Boulogne in 

Entrance   to   a    Pkivate    Housi;  durinc;   an  Evening 

Reception ii6 

An  Old  Parisian  Beau 119 

On  Common  Ground  —  Rich  and   I^oor  at  the  Con- 
fessional           12  ^ 

Palaces  of  the  Nations  on  the  Seine,  Night  Effect  128 

Sunday  Picnics  in  the  Bois  de  Vincennes       .        .  \^'-< 

A  Popular  Concert  in  the   Luxembourg  Gardens     .  140 

Crowds    leaving    a    Railway-station   after   a   Day 

IN  THE  Country 145 

Night  Scene  in  a  Faubourg  Street  .        .         .  149 

A  Bicycle  Trailer i=,2 

A  Gingerbread  Fair i=>=. 

Open-air  Dances  on  the  Fourteenth  of  July        .  1=18 

The  Ferris  Whi-.ei.  in  Paris  —  A  Oueer  Landscape   .  lOi 

An  Excursion  on  the  River  .         .         .         .  lO,'? 

The    Esplanade    of    ■ihl    Invalidi;s,    from    the    new 

Alexander  111  Bridge  at  Sunset    ....  ibS 


The  Green  Hour  ("  L'Heure  Verte")  —  Five  O'Clock 
AT  A  Boulevard  Caee 17s 

A  First-class  Funerai 178 

The  Noon   Meal  at  a  Restaurant   .        .        .        .18^ 

A  Boulevard  Art-shop i8c) 

The    Passing    Regimi;nt  —  A   Scene   in   the  Place  de 

LA    REPUBLiaUE 102 

The  Boulevard  at  Midnight  .        .        .        .  197 

Cafe  Scavengers 202 

An  Arcade 20s 

Schemers  for  Political  Preferment  .        .        .  207 

A  Cafe  Chantant  in  the  Champs-Elysees      .        .  209 

The  New  Palais  D[;s  Beaux  Arts,  as  seen  from  the 
Left  Bank  of  the  Seine  at  Night         .        .        .212 

In  the  Studio  of  a  Master 218 

Working  for  the  Prix  de  Rome        .        .        .        .22  s 

Members  of  the  French  Academy,  after  a  Session, 
crossing  the  Pont  des  Arts  from  the  Institute       227 

Varnishing  Day  at  the  Salon          .        .        .  .2^1 

A  First  Night  at  the  Theatre  pRANgAis      .  .        237 

Public  Competition  at  the  Conservatoire        .  .     24^ 

In  the  Reading-room  at  the  National  Library  .        247 

A  "Monome"  (Procession  of  Students)           .  .     240 


PALACE   OF   ELECTRICITY   AND   ILLUMINATED   FOUNTAIN 


THE    GOVERNMENTAL    MACHINE 


THE 
GOVERNMENTAL    MACHINE 


A  HOT  August  afternoon,  and  the  cage  slowly 
mounts  with  a  handful  of  travelers  to  the  top  of 
^  the  Eiffel  Tower.  We  are  not  all  sisjht-seers  ; 
at  any  rate,  I  can  answer  for  one.  The  Paris  plain  is 
so  hot  that  the  ascent  is,  with  me,  a  last  despairing  effort 
for  a  mouthful  of  air.  It  has  unexpected  advantages 
now  that  I  am  on  the  move.  I  see  Paris  as  I  ha\e  never 
seen  it  before.  There  is  the  Exhibition  Building  of 
1900,  yet  to  be  in  all  its  glory,  and  at  present  only  a 
skeleton  of  timber.  The  monstrous  litter  of  building- 
material  fills  all  the  Champ  de  Mars  and  lines  the 
Seine  on  both  banks,  far  beyond  the  esplanade  of  the 
Invalides  —  a  perspective  with  no  terminal  point.  Paris 
is  once  more  being  torn  down.  Were  there  a  speak- 
ing-trumpet at  hand,  one  would  fain  cry,  "  Why  can't 
you  let  well   enough  alone  ? "  to  the  pygmies  below. 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

This  nidotl  lasts  until  w  c  reach  the  suinniit,  w  h<n  there 
is  abundant  ex'idence  that  the\-  set  up  faster  than  they 
lay   low.      The   Champ  de   Mars  is  ccneretl   and  well- 


A    I'HNSIONER    OK    THE    INVAI  IDKS 


nigh  roofed.  The  banks,  if  still  a  might\-  nia;<e,  are 
not  w  ithout  a  plan.  So  the  saving  power  is  once  more 
in  the  constructive  activities  of  this  mar^•elous  race. 
They  ha\'e  wiped  out  Paris  a  dozen  times,  and  every 
time  have  left  something  better  in  its  place.  The 
legacy  of  the  last  exhibition  was  the  permanent  Mu- 
seum of  the  Trocadero.     One  legacy  of  this  transfor- 


THE    GOVERNMENTAL    MACHINE 

matiun  is  to  be  the  Czar's  Bridge.  The  first  span  is 
up,  and  its  lines  of  red-coated  iron,  with  the  masses  of 
masonry  on  each  side,  show  that  we  are  going  to  have 
one  more  of  the  finest  things  in  the  world. 

The  bridge  does  one  the  service  of  taking  the  view 
from  the  exhibition,  which  is,  after  all,  only  a  secondary 
affair  to  Paris  itself.  There  is  the  everlasting  specta- 
cle, more  grandiose  to-day  than  ever.  From  this  ele- 
vation the  city  is  manifestly  outgrowing  its  mere  walls, 
as  a  healthy  boy  outgrows  last  year's  jacket.  But  for 
these  walls  Paris  might  enter  into  hopeful  competition 
with  London  for  primacy  among  the  largest  cities  of 
the  world.  It  stretches  away  in  unbroken  lines  of 
milk-white  masonry  at  every  point.  The  inner  circle, 
as  one  may  already  call  the  space  within  the  fortifica- 
tions, has  yet  an  innermost  ring — the  Paris  of  the  for- 
eigner. This  Tatar  City  may  easily  be  traced  from 
our  present  elevation,  by  taking  the  Round  Point  as  its 
center,  and  the  Arch  as  its  circumference.  Here  are 
all  the  braveries  of  the  fair  for  the  happy  few  from 
many  parts  of  the  world — a  multitude  in  their  aggre- 
gate. The  British  are  an  ever-diminishing  colony; 
London  is  now  their  capital  of  pleasure  for  the  whole 
empire,  (iood  Americans  have  a  tendency  to  look  for 
their  earthly  paradise  in  the  same  quarter,  consistently 
enough,  for  the  site  of  that  region  is  notoriously  a 
speculative  point.  But  the  "balance"  of  mankind 
still  seeks  its  cosmopolis  here.  Wealthy  planters  and 
traders  from  the  four  seas,  yasiaqitoncyes^  from  South 
America,  the  pick  of  the  Continental   aristocracies,  all 

• "  Foreign   adventurer    or   swindler,    generally    hailing   from   the  sunny   .South,  or 
from  .South  .America."  — A.  liarrerc. 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

Hock  this  way  in  the  season,  and  where  they  fail  the 
Trench  of  the  same  category  are  quite  ready  to  supply 
their  place. 

But,  after  all,  these  do  not  make  Paris  or  the  wealth 
of  Paris.  The  city  quite  suffices  to  itself,  with  the 
good  help  of  France  in  the  background.  It  knows  as 
much,  and  for  years  past  has  marked  its  sense  of  the 
fact  by  a  certain  want  of  deference  to  the  outlander. 
Paris  is  one  of  the  greatest  manufacturing  cities  of 
France.  Its  industries  are  on  the  colossal  scale.  It  is 
a  huge  exporter,  not  only  of  the  articles  that  bear  its 
name,  the  "  Yankee  notions  "  of  taste  for  the  bazaars  of 
the  world,  but  of  all  the  wares  of  the  market-place.  So 
it  has  its  own  life,  and  that  life  lies  far  beyond  the  strag- 
gling band  of  fire  which  is  to  be  traced  every  night  in 
the  Champs- Elysees  and  the  boulevards.  To  my 
thinking,  it  is  best  seen  in  its  own  labor  quarters.  If 
we  were  on  the  hill  of  Montmartre  instead  of  on  this 
tower,  we  should  find  Paris  at  home.  But,  after  all,  we 
have  it  at  home  in  Montparnasse,  not  far  from  our 
feet.  Here  are  the  people  in  their  habit  as  they  live, 
and  in  their  ways  untainted  by  the  desire  to  please  any 
but  themselves. 

The  real  problem  at  issue  in  all  this  prodigious 
activity  is,  Can  an  old  people  make  itself  young  again  ? 
It  is  almost  answered  in  its  terms.  Yet  the  hope  is  so 
fascinating  that  it  tempts  to  new  experiments  again 
and  again.  Japan  began  it  the  other  day,  and  is  still 
encouraged  or  deluded  with  the  belief  that  it  is  renew- 
ing its  youth.  The  French  began  more  than  a  hun- 
dred years  ago,  when  they  were  still  mus,t  ancient  of 
days  —  of  the  moderns,  unquestionably,  the  oldest  folk 


ARRIVAL  OF  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE   REPUBLIC.       OUTSIDE  THE   HOTEL 
DE    VILLE,    DURING   A    MUNICIPAL    BALL 

in  Europe.  They  were  a  polity  and  a  civilization 
when  the  P2nglish  analogue  of  the  man  in  the  street 
was  Gurth  the  swineherd,  and  when  Italy  had  for  the 
moment  crumbled  back  into  the  animate  dust  of  the 
races  out  of  which  Rome  was  made.  Oh,  how  old  they 
are!  It  flashes  on  you  without  preoccupation  and 
without  warning  in  modern  Paris  as  well  as  in  the 
remote  provinces.  The  wrinkles  show  in  the  majestic 
dela}-s  of  their  bureaucracy,  in  a  thousand  medie\alisms 
of  their  ways   of  thought.      I  will   not  say  they  show 


PARIS    OF     rO-DAY 

under  the  paint,  for  that  would  do  injustiee  to  my 
meaning  in  doing  injustice  to  them  ;  for  it  is  an  honest 
attempt  to  effect  the  change  by  the  diet  of  ideas  and  by 
the  regimen  of  institutions.  In  the  Revolution  they 
were  for  doing  away  with  the  old  Adam  in  a  day  and 
a  night.  It  was  the  most  prodigious  day  and  night  in 
all  history  ;  but  when  it  was  past  the  would-be  strij^ling 
sat  down  and  wiped  his  still  furrowed  brow,  and  re- 
lapsed into  the  habits  of  age  —  into  aristocracy  with 
the  Empire,  into  limited  suffrages,  into  the  theory  of 
statehood  as  mere  organized  conquest.  The  new  effort 
came  with  the  downfall  of  the  Second  Empire,  a  catas- 
trophe brought  about  solely  by  the  failure  of  that  sys- 
tem to  serve  the  old  military  ideals.  It  is  going  on 
to-day.  The  problem  is  still  unsolved.  Is  it  better 
for  a  nation,  as  for  an  individual,  to  accept  the  inevita- 
ble, to  take  itself  frankly  at  its  actual  count  of  years, 
and  to  make  the  best  of  it  ?     Is  there  anything  more  to 


M\ 


KING  TOWARD  THE  SEISh 


strixe    for   than   a   mere    artful    pro- 
longation   of  forces   whi-ch    are    still 


A    BALL    AT   THE   ELYSEE   PALACE 


THE    GOVERNMENTAL    MACHIN1< 


necessarily  on  the  decline  ?  I  have  sometimes  had 
a  curious  fancy  that  these  ages  of  nations  might  be 
fixed  by  a  sort  of  typical  correspondence  with  the  ages 
of  individual  man. 

In  this  view  England  has  turned  sixty,  but  is  still 
hale,  hearty,  and  well  preserved,  still  better  equipped 
for  a  day  on  the  moors  of  empire  than  many  a  young- 
ster of  them  all,  yet  still  within  measurable  distance  of 
an  allotted  span.  Poor  Spain,  as  we  have  seen,  is  as 
rusty  in  the  joints  as  her  national  hero  of  romance,  and 
has  manifestly  entered  her  dismal  inheritance  of  labor 
and  sorrow.     So  has  Italy.     The  grand   republic  is  in 


MORNING  SCENE   IN   A   PARIS   POLICE   COURT 


PARIS    OF     rO-DAY 

the  \cr)'  prime  of  manhood,  and  therefore  past  the 
period  of  his  first  youth.  He  has  lost  some  of  his  illu- 
sions, for  he  lives  fast.  He  w  ill  be  thirty  next  birth- 
day—  I  hope  I  am  not  rude.  Russia  is  younger,  in 
spite  of  the  chronologies,  and  the  shock-headed  young 
giant  has  not  yet  attained  to  the  proper  combing  of 
his  hair.  Germany  is  fi\e-and-forty  if  a  day,  but 
amazingly  well  preserved,  thanks  to  an  elaborate 
chamber  gymnastic,  the  results  of  which  have  yet  to 
be  tested  in  the  field-work  of  the  world.  France  —  well, 
it  is  an  ungracious  exercise  of  fancy  at  the  best,  and  I 
leave  it  an  open  question,  as  I  am  at  this  moment  in 
her  presence.  Sometimes  you  hesitate  to  give  her  a 
day  over  twenty.  Then  comes  an  affaire,  or  some 
other  disenchantment,  and  you  are  sure  she  Mill  never 
see  ninety  again,  and  that,  do  what  she  may,  she  can 
never  shake  oft'  the  enemy  as  he  creeps  on  with  his 
fateful  burden  of  old  habits,  old  ways  of  life  and 
thought. 

But  the  activity,  the  mere  civic  and  industrial 
energy,  is  j^rodigious.  \'ou  return  ex'ery  few  years  to 
find  a  new  city.  The  boasted  Paris  of  the  Empire  was 
a  village  compared  with  the  Paris  I  see,  as  in  pano- 
rama, to-day.  The  houses  are  more  like  palaces  than 
ever  they  were  before.  "  They  cut  the  Pentelican  mar- 
ble as  if  it  were  snow,"  says  Emerson  of  his  Greeks. 
So  the  Parisian  sculpteur  en  bdtinieiit  cuts  the  softer 
stone  of  the  Normandy  quarries.  The  Empire  is  no- 
thing to  the  Republic  in  the  count  of  new  avenues,  of 
new  public  works  of  every  kind.  The  perpetual 
advance  of  mere  splendor  and  lu.xury,  for  what  it  is 
worth,  may  be  traced  in  the  Champs-Elysees.     There 

lO 


THE    GOVKRNMENTAL    MACHINE 

are  still  left  (jnc  or  two  (juaint  plaster-fronted  houses, 
which  represent  the  modest  ideals  of  the  time  of  Louis 
Philippe.  Hard  by,  in  any  number,  are  the  stone 
fronts  of  the  Empire,  and,  rapidly  replacing  these,  the 
Cyclopean  masses  in  wliich  the  modern  millionaire 
swaggers  in  his  pride  —  a  perfect  riot  of  carving  in 
their  rather  gaudy  fronts.  Naturalistic  mfants  disport 
themselves  over  all  the  vast  facade  of  the  new  Palace 
Hotel,  with  other  figures  that  may  charitably  be  re- 
garded as  their  mamas.  It  is  not  exactly  good  taste, 
but,  with  its  still  inalienable  "quality,"  what  foreign 
city  might  not  be  glad  to  ha\e  half  of  its  complaint  of 
bad?  Those  white  patches  in  the  distance,  beyond  the 
walls,  are  buildings  only  less  superb  and  less  opulent. 
The  mere  movement  of  human  beings  is  amazing. 
While  waiting  for  its  underground  railway,  now  more 
than  half  done,  Paris  travels  by  automobile  and  by 
huge  two-decker  street-trains,  drawn  by  locomotives, 
which  quite  destroy  the  amenities  of  the  interior  scene. 
The  old  peaceful  cross-roads  near  the  Printemps  are 
a  terror,  what  with  trumpeting  engines,  broughams, 
cycles,  cJiars-d-banc,  all  driven  by  steam  or  electricity. 
The  tramways  here,  as  elsewhere,  are  destroying  the 
streets,  and  the  light  fiacres  bob  and  dance  about  over 
the  tormented  surface  like  dinghies  in  a  gale. 

I  do  not  say  that  it  is  edifying;  still  less  do  I  call  it 
delightful.  I  cite  it  only  in  proof  of  the  intensity  of  the 
movement.  Those  \\\\o  find  their  account  in  mere  rush 
and  hurry  should  be  in  paradise  here.  The  horse  w  ill 
soon  have  the  air  of  a  survival ;  the  motor,  for  e\  cr\' 
kind  of  street  use,  is  Ijecoming  a  matter  of  course.  In 
this  invention  England,  and  even  America,  have  been 

II 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

left  far  behind.  The  pace  is  fearful,  the  accidents  are 
fearful,  but  such  as  they  are  the  administration  seems  to 
be  thankful  for  them  as  a  safety-valve  for  the  energies 
that  might  otherwise  ha\'e  an  explosive  force  in  politics. 
It  is  a  race  to  the  de\il  that  threatens  the  individual 
only,  and  not  the  state,  b'or  good  or  ill  the  giant  city 
is  all  alive  at  every  point.  Everything  seems  to  be  re- 
building or  rebuilt.  The  Saint-Lazare  station  is  new; 
the  Gare  de  Lyon  is  newer  still.  The  Orleans  line  is 
pushing  its  way  into  town  by  a  stupendous  settlement 
that  is  to  occupy  the  entire  site  of  the  Cour  des 
Comptes,  burned  under  the  Commune.  The  whole 
square  of  the  Invalides  is  to  be  undermined  by  another 
huge  structure  of  the  same  sort.  This  is  for  Paris 
only,  and,  to  scale,  much  the  same  thing  is  going  on 
all  over  the  territory  in  ports,  harbors,  branch  railways, 
and  vicinal  roads.  It  is  a  rage  of  renewal.  France 
will  be  young  again  if  she  dies  for  it.  The  mere  growth 
is  l)cyond  question.  If  we  ct)uld  peer  through  the  roofs 
from  here  we  should  see  a  working  population  of  nearly 
a  million  and  a  half,  which  forms  only  a  part  of  the 
total  population  of  "all  souls."  It  is  one  of  the  great- 
est manufacturing  cities,  as  well  as  the  greatest  city  of 
pleasure  on  the  planet.  Ninety-six  thousand  of  these 
workers — Lilliputian  from  the  level — would  be  found 
in  the  tailoring  and  dressmaking  trades,  helping  to 
clothe  the  universe,  and  to  make  good  Victor  Hugo's 
boast,  "  I  defy  you  to  wear  a  bonnet  that  is  not  of  Paris 
fashion  or  of  Paris  make."  One  hundred  and  twelve 
thousand  are  in  metals,  precious  or  otherwise.  Over 
forty-four  thousand  of  the  wondrous  pygmies  would  be 
hard  at  it  in  the  book  and   printing  trades ;  they  were 

12 


THE    GOVKRNMENTAL    MACHINE 

but  twenty-se\cn  thousand  a  dozen  years  ago.  I  could 
go  on,  with  the  help  of  a  jubilant  return  lately  issued  by 
the  Office  of  Labor,  but  I  generously  forbear. 

So  this  may  serve  to  prepare  the  way  for  my  para- 
do.x,  that  the  French  are  really  the  most  serious  and 
purposeful  folk  in  the  world  —  a  great,  sad  race,  too, 
with  a  pessimistic  bitter  for  the  subflavor  of  their  na- 
tional gaiety,  as  it  is  the  subflavor  of  their  absinthe. 
They  put  on  their  high  spirits  as  a  garment,  and,  like 
the  Figaro  of  their  ideal,  they  laugh  lest  they  should  be 
obliged  to  weep.  "Our  lively  neighbor,"  "the  light- 
hearted  Gaul" — what  thoughtless  locutions  are  these! 
Our  Gauls  are  a  gloomy  and  a  brooding  swarm,  ever 
haunted  with  the  fear  of  being  left  behind  in  the  race  of 
life,  their  clear,  keen  intellect  marred  and  thwarted  by 
wretched  nerves.  It  is  the  artistic  temperament  with 
its  penalty.  With  those  nerves  there  is  no  answering 
for  their  best-laid  schemes.  They  start  at  shadows, 
and  once  started  in  suspicion,  rage,  or  hate,  they  have 
the  desperation  of  the  bolting  horse.  They  bolted 
under  the  Revolution,  in  spite  of  the  warning  entreaties 
of  Jefferson,  who  tried  to  show  them  how  they  might 
run  a  profitable  course  to  constitutional  reform.  They 
are  not  always  bolting,  be  it  well  understood.  They 
have  long  and  blessed  intervals  of  national  self-posses- 
sion, ease,  and  grace,  when  butter  would  hardly  melt  in 
their  mouths.  But  Mme.  France  xs  joitynaliere,  rising 
without  any  volition  of  her  own  in  the  humor  tliat  is  to 
rule  the  day.  When  she  comes  down  in  the  morning 
with  one  of  her  headaches,  her  nearest  and  dearest  had 
better  find  an  excuse  for  getting  out  of  the  wa\'.  The 
personification,  however,  is  scarcely  felicitous.      In  point 

13 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

of  tcinpcranicnt  the  men  here  are  the  women,  and  the 
women  the  men.  The  quiet,  hiborious,  cool-headed 
housewife  runs  France.  The  secret  of  the  malady  is 
nature's  ;  the  secret  of  the  cure  is  the  people's  own. 
There  is  none  other  so  ploddini^ly,  so  remorselessl)'  in- 
dustrious. After  every  outbreak  France  picks  up  the 
pieces,  and  out  of  the  ruin  wrought  by  the  paroxysm 
makes  something"  finer  than  before.  The  fatal  war  was 
an  attack  of  nerves.  The  Jew-baiting  is  another,  and 
it  may  be  described  as  a  desperate  attempt  to  reconcile 
Panama  to  national  self-respect.  The  awful  "  affaire" 
is  a  third  on  the  same  lines.  Each  attack  has  been 
intensified  by  the  new  regime  of  liberty  —  still  new, 
though  it  is  nearly  as  old  as  the  constitution  of  the 
present  Republic.  Freedom  as  a  habit  is  the  growth  of 
centuries,  and  these  recently  converted  sinners  of  des- 
potism are  still  subject  to  many  a  slip.  So  one  part  of 
the  press  of  Paris — not  the  largest  part,  l)y  a  long  way, 
thank  (iod!  —  is  still  drunk  with  the  license  of  invective 
and  denunciation.  The  sots  will  sleep  it  off  in  the  long 
run,  I  feel  sure,  and  the  better  part  of  the  nation  w  ill 
find  a  hearing  for  the  still,  small  voice.  But  oh,  just 
now  it  is  weary  waiting  for  the  friends  of  France,  and 
it  is  no  time  to  take  up  the  cry,  "Courage,  mon  ami,  le 
diable  est  mort!  " 

They  know  perfectly  well  what  is  the  matter  with 
them,  and  for  their  strait-jacket  they  have  invented  the 
administrati\'e  machine.  This  is  by  no  means  to  be 
confounded  with  the  purely  political  variety  of  the  con- 
trivance in  use  in  other  latitudes.  It  is  the  permanent 
civil  service,  the  government — in  a  word,  the  great  au- 
tomatic contrivance  that  keeps  them  going  in  national 


THE   LONGCHAMP   REVIEW    ON   THE 
FOURTEENTH   OF  JULY 


THE    GOVERNMENTAL    MACHINE 

housekeeping  while  they  are  on  the  rampage.  No- 
where else,  except  perhaps  in  Germany,  is  there  any- 
thing like  it  for  efficiency  of  a  kind.  It  is  everything 
that  they  are  not — stable,  unchanging,  the  slave  of  tra- 
dition, a  thing  that  moves  from  precedent  to  precedent, 
but  with  restraint  instead  of  freedom  for  its  aim.  The 
first  Napoleon  was  the  inventor  of  it.  The  material 
with  which  he  wrought  was  the  wreckage  of  the  old 
monarchy,  still  extremely  serviceable  in  parts  as  a  thing 
approved  to  the  genius  of  the  people  by  the  experience 
of  a  thousand  years.  Dynasties,  presidents,  ministers, 
come  and  go,  but  the  machine  grinds  on  forever  to  do 
the  work  of  the  day.  No  matter  what  the  tumult  in 
Paris  or  at  Versailles,  the  prefects  are  at  their  posts  in  the 
provinces,  and  their  orders  issue  as  calmly  as  if  there 
was  sleep  at  the  center  of  the  system.  It  is  a  Chinese 
bureaucracy  in  completeness,  with  the  difference  that  it 
is  in  thorough  repair.  As  a  piece  of  clockwork  it  is  one 
of  the  greatest  of  human  inventions.  At  one  end  of  the 
mechanism  is  the  President  of  the  Republic;  at  the  other 
the  humblest  of  the  thirty-six  thousand  odd  mayors  of 
the  communes  of  France  —  say  the  little  fellow  who 
rules  over  Blanche-Fontaine  in  the  Doubs,  with  its  pop- 
ulation of  four-and-twenty  souls,  ten  of  them,  if  you 
please,  municipal  councilors.  Each  of  these  mayors  is 
a  president  in  his  way,  as  the  President  is  only  a  glori- 
fied mayor.  There  is  no  overlapping  of  areas,  no  con- 
flict of  jurisdictions,  and  lest  there  should  be,  the  special 
contrivance  of  the  Council  of  State  provides  for  instant 
appeasement.  If  my  view  could  extend  from  this  tower 
to  the  whole  of  the  territory,  I  should  see  one  vast 
nerve  system  of  centralized  rule.     The  village  mayor 

17 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

in  his  sabots  stuffed  with  straw,  and  with  his  council 
equally  fresh  from  the  stable,  is  only  the  reduced  image 
of  the  great  man  at  the  Elysde  surrounded  b}-  his  min- 
isters. So  many  mayors  and  so  many  communes  make 
a  canton,  with  another  council,  and  generally  a  superior 
mayor  for  its  chief.  So  many  cantons  make  an  arron- 
dissement,  like  the  canton,  less  corporate  in  its  person- 
ality, but  with  yet  a  council  more, — always  of  superior 
persons,  naturally,  as  we  rise  in  the  scale, — and  with  a 
subprefect  at  its  head.  With  the  arrondissement  comes 
the  electoral  district  for  the  Chamber.  So  many  arron- 
dissements  make  a  department,  and  here  the  prefect  sits 
enthroned  -again  with  his  council,  now  a  little  parlia- 
ment, for  his  guide  and  check.  Beyond  him  is  the  min- 
ister of  the  interior  in  the  capital,  who  commands  the 
wires  in  every  sense,  and  whose  touches  thrill  by  devo- 
lution and  subtransmission  throughout  the  mighty  sys- 
tem. Beyond  the  minister  of  the  interior  there  is  really 
nothing  but  the  Maker  of  the  universe,  and  he,  I  believe, 
is  not  officially  recognized  in  the  constitution.  Uni- 
formity is  the  note,  with  certain  exceptions  of  detail  that 
are  immaterial  in  the  bird's-eye  view.  Paris  is  only  a 
larger  commune,  though  it  has  eighty  mayors,  because 
if  it  had  seventy-nine  less,  the  one  left  might  rival  the 
President  in  power.  The  twofold  election  of  the  coun- 
cil by  the  citizens,  and  of  the  mayor  by  the  council,  is 
the  corner-stone  of  the  system.  The  nation  elects  the 
Parliament  and  the  Parliament  the  President  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  way.  The  mayor,  however,  is  still  under 
control.  He  can  be  suspended  for  a  month  by  the  pre- 
fect, for  three  months  by  the  minister  of  the  interior, 
and  forever  by  the  President. 

i8 


THE    GOVERNMENTAL    MACHINE 

This,  as  I  have  said,  was  Napoleon's  gift  to  France, 
and  the  wiser  sort,  who  dread  her  moods  and  their  own, 
esteem  it  above  all  his  victories.  France  rails  against 
it  from  time  to  time,  but  she  would  not  get  rid  of  it  for 


"OLD    PARIS,"    AS   SEEN    EROM    THE    SEINE    AT    NIGHT 

the  world.  The  machine  carries  on  the  business.  It 
collects  the  taxes,  spends  them,  welcomes  the  entry  of 
every  citizen  into  the  world,  educates,  marries,  tends 
him  in  sickness  and  in  health,  and  buries  him  when  all 
is  done.  It  suits  everybody  in  his  heart  of  hearts  as  a 
sort  of  fixed  point  in  a  world  of  flux.  All  but  the  wildest 
aspire  to  no  more  than  the  control  of  the  motive  power, 
only  to  find,   in  the  long  run,   that,  by  its  immutable 

19 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

laws  of  mechanics,  it  controls  them.  If  they  strained  it 
to  bursting,  they  would  be  the  first  to  mount  sky-high. 
All  the  revolutions,  with  perhaps  the  single  exception 
of  the  Commune,  and  I  am  not  quite  sure  as  to  that, 
were  really  only  schemes  for  securing  the  control  of  the 
machine.  They  aim  merel)-  at  changing  the  course, 
not  the  engine.  The  institution  is  satisfactory;  its  oc- 
casional uses  only  lea\-e  something  to  be  desired.  I  re- 
member once  calling  on  a  friend  who  had  been  shut  up 
in  the  old  prison  of  Sainte-Pelagie  for  some  offense 
under  the  press  law^s.  I  condoled  with  him,  less  on  the 
hardships  of  his  lot  than  on  the  want  of  respect  for  free- 
dom of  opinion  which  it  involved.  "  W'e  must  abolish 
these  detestable  cages  for  free  thought,"  I  cried,  look- 
ing round  on  the  comfortably  furnished  room.  "\'ou 
are  right,"  he  said;  "all  1  li\'e  for  now  is  to  put  the  op- 
posite party  here."  This  is  the  moral  of  French  tol- 
erance for  the  machine.  It  is  a  very  good  instrument 
when  you  have  the  vaKes  under  your  own  hand. 

The  interior  of  a  ministry  —  what  a  soothing  sugges- 
tion of  immutability  !  For  the  perfect  association  of 
ideas  I  prefer  that  it  should  be  one  of  the  ministries  on 
this  left  bank,  the  other  one  abounding  in  patches  of 
raw  modernity  that  spoil  the  impression.  Let  it  be  in 
the  Rue  de  Grenelle,  for  choice,  or  in  the  Rue  de 
Varenne,  not  much  more  than  a  good  stone's  throw 
from  our  tower.  Oh,  the  repose  of  its  massive  outer 
defenses  of  plain  stone  that  keep  the  courtyard  sacred 
to  the  sparrows  and  to  the  suitors  for  place  !  Within, 
it  is  cool,  and  echoing  to  the  footfall,  with,  at  first  sight, 
the  frequent  porter  for  its  only  inhabitant.  He  is  there 
for  life.     You  may  know  it  by  his  urbanity,  his  unhast- 

20 


THE    GOVERNMENTAL    MACHINE 

ingncss,  which  betoken  perfect  freedom  from  the  irrita- 
tion of  uncertainty.  He  exacts  a  first  rough  sketch  of 
your  business,  as  in  duty  bound,  then  passes  you  on  to 
a  man  on  the  first  flight,  for  whose  further  information 
you  fill  in  the  drawing  with  a  sort  of  color-wash  of  sym- 
pathies and  hopes.  This  man  may  be  a  little  cassaut 
(curt)  if  he  has  had  words  a\  ith  his  wife  in  the  morning, 
but  you  are  not  to  take  it  as  personal  to  yourself. 

Now  you  are  just  on  the  fringe  of  the  life  of  the  hive. 
It  is  a  slippered  life,  and  it  is  still  ease.  The  messen- 
gers who  pass  to  and  fro  between  the  porter's  lodge 
and  the  rooms  still  suggest  peace  ineftable  and  the  con- 
tinuity of  things.  Some  of  them  wear  long  brown 
holland  blouses  that  eke  out  their  modest  incomes  by 
saving  their  coats.  They  carry  huge  dossiers,  or  port- 
folios, which  seem  to  memorialize  the  business  of  the 
world,  and  which,  in  their  bulky  universality,  are  ser- 
mons in  leather  on  the  insignificance  of  events.  The 
imaginary  perspective  of  these  dossiers,  as  you  might 
see  them  stored  in  the  archives,  would  naturally 
strengthen  the  moral.  They  are  the  connecting-links 
of  all  the  little  systems,  monarchical  or  republican,  that 
have  ceased  to  be,  and  they  maintain  the  perfect  se- 
quence of  administrative  policy.  Those  under  which 
the  porters  stagger  for  the  moment  are  only  the  dos- 
siers of  the  day,  the  passing  wrinkles  on  the  brow  of 
France,  which  have  come  here  to  be  smoothed  out. 
They  will  be  smoothed  out  by  means  of  letters,  fault- 
less alike  in  st\le  and  handwriting,  the  very  oftice- 
marks  of  which  seem  to  link  you  with  the  present  and 
the  past.  Now,  haply,  you  come  in  touch  with  the 
clerical  staff,  but  always  in  a  discreet,  secluded,  monastic 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

sort  of  way.  The  beardless  dandies  are  often  cadets  of 
good  families,  who,  with  sub\entions  from  the  private 
purse,  are  able  to  cut  a  figure  on  the  stipend  of  a 
laborer.  The  employment  in  a  ministry  gives  them 
position,  and  that  is  enough  in  a  country  which  betrays 
its  age  by  still  cherishing  a  sort  of  prejudice  against 
trade.  Some  of  them  scribble  things  for  the  papers  in 
their  abundant  leisure ;  the  detestable  Rochefort  began 
in  this  way.  Others  sax'e  themselves  for  social  suc- 
cesses and  a  good  match.  The  little  bits  of  red  ribbon 
in  the  buttonholes  betoken  the  higher  grades. 

To  see  all  the  grades  as  in  review,  we  must  wait  for 
the  sacred  hour  of  noon  —  the  hour  at  which  we  might 
see  the  whole  city  below  us  black  with  the  shifting 
specks  that  mark  a  whole  population  pouring  out  to 
luncheon.  Then  the  bureaus  begin  to  empty  for  a 
solemn  lull  of  business,  which  lasts  for  the  better  part 
of  two  hours.  The  place  looks  more  than  ever  perma- 
nent and  unchanging  in  this  view.  The  French  de- 
jeuner, the  French  dinner,  gives  one  faith  in  the  stability 
of  things.  They  are  so  purposeful,  so  deliberate  ;  they 
betoken  so  much  the  assurance  of  the  continuing  city, 
in  their  orderly  courses,  with  the  coffee  and  chasse-cafe 
to  follow,  and  the  billiards,  cards,  or  dominoes  for  the 
wind-up.  The  dejeuner  is  the  solid  break  in  the  day, 
and  the  strange  thing  is  that  its  associations  of  rest  and 
ease  do  not  tend  to  render  the  resumption  of  toil  impos- 
sible. The  staff  comes  back  to  new  labors,  though 
these  are  not  unduly  prolonged.  Its  output  of  work  is 
still  considerable,  although  it  is  slow  —  perhaps  because 
it  is  slow.  The  plodding  method  makes  each  step  sure, 
and  precludes  the  delays  of  revision. 

22 


THK    GOVERNMENTAL    MACHINE 

The  crown  of  things  in  stabihty  is  the  old  head 
porter,  who  has  seen  them  all  come  and  go,  the  young 
sparks  into  the  prefectures  or  into  literature,  the  chief 
ministers  into  private  life  or  into  a  sort  of  public  ob- 
scurity after  their  brief  average  of  the  lime-light  of 
office.  The  man  at  the  head  is  the  only  uncertain  ele- 
ment of  the  composition.  The  underlings  of  every 
grade  may  remain  forever  if  they  like,  rising  by  suc- 
cessive steps  until  they  write  chef  de  bureau  after  their 
names.  Mutation  is  reserved  for  those  who  have  made 
their  mark  in  the  struggles  of  the  political  arena,  and 
have  suddenly  been  "bombarded"  from  the  outside 
into  the  highest  seats  by  explosions  of  parliamentary 
applause.  Many  of  these,  under  our  modern  scheme 
of  equality  of  opportunity,  have  come  from  the  hum- 
blest stations,  and  go  back  to  them  after  their  fall  in  a 
way  which  has  something  of  Roman  dignity.  Once 
they  might  have  hoped  to  save  during  their  tenure  of 
power. 

Under  the  Empire  the  ministers  received  a  hundred 
thousand  francs  a  year,  with  allowances;  but  in  1871 
the  salary  was  cut  down  to  sixty  thousand.  This,  in 
spite  of  free  residence  at  the  expense  of  the  state,  and 
other  pecuniary  privileges  amounting  in  value  to  about 
forty  thousand  francs  more,  is  insufficient.  No  minister 
can  now  make  ends  meet  without  a  pri\'ate  fortune. 
They  retire  from  their  official  state  perhaps  to  the 
modest  pay  of  a  deputy,  nine  thousand  francs  a  year, 
and  to  occasional  earnings  with  the  pen ;  from  glitter- 
ing banquets  and  receptions,  at  which  they  entertained 
the  magnates  of  the  official  world,  home  and  foreign,  to 
the  omelet  with  the  cutlet  to  follow,  served  by  some  old 

23 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

peasant  woman  from  Brittany  in  the  fifth-floor  flat  from 
which  they  emerged.  From  this  cage  we  might 
almost  shake  hands  with  some  ministers  in  their  exalted 
retirement.  Their  height  of  disgrace  has  its  consola- 
tions. It  removes  them  farther  from  an  unjust  earth, 
and  nearer  to  the  compensating  stars.  I  used  to  find 
M.  Jules  Simon  at  a  great  elevation,  moral  as  well 
as  material,  after  a  fall  from  power  which  perplexed 
the  nations  w^ith  fear  of  change.  I  found  AI.  Yves 
Guyot  au  qitatricme  the  other  day,  draw'ing  his  breath 
with  difticulty,  I  thought,  amid  a  too  dense  undergrowth 
of  economic  literature,  and  writing  his  daily  article  for 
the  "  Siecle "'  in  championship  of  the  prisoner  of 
Rennes. 

The  petits  employes  have  the  best  of  it.  X'enerable 
figures,  you  may  trace  them  in  their  old  age  to  calm 
retreats  in  the  leafy  suburbs  that  bound  our  view,  where 
they  take  the  evening  air  in  the  zinc  summer-houses  of 
gardens  relatively  as  small  as  their  own  souls,  or  under 
the  shadow^s  of  plaster  busts  which  figure  the  transient 
and  embarrassed  phantoms  of  forgotten  ministers  of 
the  day,  to  whose  favor  they  owed  their  place.  They 
are  reposing  before  dinner,  after  their  game  of  bowls  in 
the  public  avenue,  played  to  a  treble  of  applause  from  a 
circle  of  their  own  order. 

Law^  and  police  form  an  integral  part  of  the  machine, 
enduring,  unchanging,  in  their  hierarchical  condition  a 
solid  bulwark  against  the  vagaries  of  the  popular  spirit. 
To  feel  this  to  the  full  one  should  attend  the  red  mass 
at  the  Palais  de  Justice  in  early  November,  which 
marks  the  reopening  of  the  courts  after  the  long  vaca- 
tion.    The  Archbishop  of  Paris  presides  in  person,  as 

2+ 


A   CIVIL   MARRIAGE 


THK    GOVKRNMKN J AL    MACHINE 

though  to  show  the  sohdarity  l)ct\\ccn  all  the  powers 
that  be.  Here  again  one  sees  that  this  shifting  society 
has  still  its  foundation  of  conservative  forces.  It  is  the 
old  order  of  this  old,  old  people,  still  holding  its  own 
amid  the  new.  The  Revolution  may  have  changed 
the  forms;  it  could  not  change  the  spirit  —  the  way  of 
looking  at  things,  in  which  habit  proves  itself  the  true 
heir  of  the  ages.  The  great  judges  are  in  their  robes 
of  red ;  hence  the  name  of  the  function.  Nothing 
much  seems  to  have  happened  for  centuries,  as  they 
file  in.  So  they  robed  and  so  they  filed  when  the  Bas- 
tille still  frowned  over  Paris,  and  when  the  oubliettes  of 
the  feudal  castles  were  the  best-remembered  things  in 
France.  It  is  all  pure  middle  age.  The  black-robed 
judges  of  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce  —  a  touch  of  nov- 
elty by  virtue  of  their  office  —  might  be  visible  from 
here  as  they  pass  from  their  court  on  the  other  side  of 
the  boulevard,  through  a  dense  crowd.  Within  the 
palace  the  Council  of  the  Order  of  Advocates,  with  the 
bdtoiinier  at  its  head,  defiles  from  the  prisoners'  gallery 
to  join  the  judges.  The  procession  moves  toward  the 
Sainte-Chapelle,  where  Saint  Louis  went  to  church 
seven  centuries  and  a  half  ago,  as  we  may  go  to  church 
to-day.  The  rich  toilets  of  the  visitors  feed  the  blaze 
of  color.  Here,  on  the  front  benches,  is  the  red  of  the 
Court  of  Appeal  and  of  the  Court  of  Cassation,  that 
famous  court  which  stemmed  the  torrent  of  popular 
fanaticism  in  the  "affaire."  Silk  and  ermine,  velvet  and 
lace,  nothing  is  wanting  in  the  trappings  to  carry  the 
mind  back  to  the  ages  of  faith.  Justice  is  solidly  estab- 
lished in  France,  and  it  is  organized  on  much  the  same 
principle    as    the    administration.     The   justice    of  the 

27 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

peace,  who  is  the  magistrate  of  the  first  degree,  sits  in 
the  chief  town  of  the  canton.  He  is  removable  only  by 
the  President. 

The  members  of  the  higher  cotirts  hold  their  places 
for  life.  Their  social  sympathies  sometimes  tincture 
their  judgments.  They  cannot  always  forget  that  they 
belong  by  tradition  to  an  order  which  was  one  of  the 
nobilities  of  France  —  the  nobility  of  the  robe.  They 
have  therefore  a  sort  of  fellow-feeling  with  the  nobility 
of  the  sword.  The  bar  is  a  great  trade-union,  in  spite 
of  republican  reforms.  It  is  one  of  the  few  privileged 
institutions  left,  the  last  of  the  corporations,  and  as  such 
about  the  only  complete  survival  of  prerevolutionary 
France.  Its  council  decides  on  the  admission  of  can- 
didates, and  has  a  tendency  to  reject  them  if  they  are 
not  of  the  right  sort.  In  spite  of  this,  the  country  is 
overrun  by  needy  lawyers,  who  push  up  to  Paris  as 
deputies,  get  dazzled  there  by  the  social  splendors,  and 
go  into  isthmian  canals,  unfortunately  not  to  drown 
there,  but  to  make  their  fortunes  and  enjoy  bon  soitper, 
bon  gite,  ct  le  reste  with  the  glittering  crowd.  The 
council  is  most  favorably  disposed  to  those  who  keep 
the  right  company,  think,  and  even  shave,  in  the  right 
way.  Its  upper  lip,  like  that  of  the  bench,  is  generally 
a  terror,  in  the  pitiless  severity  of  its  naked  lines.  The 
bar  has  its  own  cafes,  its  own  drawing-rooms,  its  own 
jokes.  The  oratory  is  just  what  you  might  expect  from 
the  lips.  It  is  the  revived  oratory  of  the  old  school, 
which  went  straight  to  the  reason,  and  left  the  feelings 
to  take  care  of  themselves.  Some  of  these  men  — 
some  of  the  judges  especially  —  glory  in  the  thought 
that  they  have  not  read  a  work  of  literature  of  later 

28 


THE    GOVERNMENTAL    MACHINE 

date  than  the  earher  eighteenth  century,  when,  accord- 
ing to  them,  classic  prose  reached  its  high-water  mark. 
Their  art,  hke  all  art  whatsoever  in  France,  is  a  struc- 
ture with  a  plan.  They  know  exactly  what  they  are 
going  to  say,  and  how  they  are  going  to  say  it,  and 
when,  by  chance,  their  voice  trembles,  be  sure  it  trem- 
bles to  order.  The  looking-glass  has  had  their  first 
confidences  in  every  effect  of  gesture.  Their  hearers 
know  it  and  expect  it,  and  applaud  the  structural  skill. 

Clery,  whom  I  used  to  meet  in  old  days,  sometimes 
terrified  me  by  his  facility  as  a  speaking-machine.  He 
even  sounded  the  two  ;/s  whenever  they  came  together, 
as  they  pride  themselves  on  doing  at  the  Frangais. 
Nothing  was  wanting  but  the  suggestion  that  the  driv- 
ing power  of  the  amazing  organism  came  from  the 
blood.  Maitre  Rousse  was  a  master  of  this  style — 
hard,  glittering,  impeccable.  But  the  hardness  was 
grit.  He  stuck  to  his  post  during  the  Commune,  and 
fought  that  usurpation  all  through  with  the  weapons  of 
law.  He  must  have  congratulated  himself  every  night 
that  he  still  had,  not  so  much  a  pillow  to  lie  on,  as  a 
head  to  lay  on  it.  Maitre  Demange,  who  has  fought 
so  valiantly  for  justice  at  Rennes  and  elsewhere,  is  an- 
other strong  man.  He  has  more  animation,  but,  whether 
gay  or  grave,  his  manner  is  throughout  tempered  by 
finished  ease,  and  he  always  keeps  within  the  bounds 
of  the  natural  note.  In  spite  of  recent  reforms,  the  pro- 
cedure is  still  absolutely  antiquated  in  its  presumption 
of  the  original  sin  of  the  accused,  and  in  its  regard  for 
the  sanctity  of  the  accusation.  How  often  has  that 
dismal  prison  hard  by  seen  wretched  suspects  in  murder 
cases  confronted  with  the  remains  of  the  victim,  to  the 

29 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

end  of  drawinj;  conclusions  from  their  tremors,  and 
from  the  pallor  of  their  cheek  ? 

Believ^e  me,  you  cannot  ha\e  been  a  power  and  a 
polity  as  far  back  as  Charlemagne  for  nothing.  We 
have  seen  lately  how  they  still  watch  the  slumbers  of 
captives,  and  flash  search-lights,  the  rays  of  which  are 
expected  to  reach  the  conscience,  on  the  blinking  eyes. 
The  rule  of  prudence  in  France  is  to  contrive  always  to 
be  the  accuser,  and  to  get  the  first  blow  in  with  your 
charge.  Perhaps  that  is  why  they  exhibit  such  a  ten- 
dency to  arrest  one  another  all  round  in  street  rows.  I 
lia\e  seen  them  standing  in  a  sort  of  charmed  circle  of 
nervous  excitement,  each  with  a  hand  on  a  neighbor's 
necktie.  Do  not  be  too  hard  on  them ;  they  have 
been  brought  up  on  theories  of  the  innate  depravity  of 
human  nature.  Then  they  are  so  quick-minded,  so 
acute.  A  very  little  knowledge  of  your  own  heart  soon 
constrains  you  to  the  sorrowful  admission  that  the  other 
man  must  be  a  bad  lot. 

To  see  a  poor  devil  at  his  worst,  I  think,  one  must 
see  him,  not  in  the  rat-pit  of  a  court  of  justice,  but  in 
the  preliminary  stage  of  his  examination  by  \l.  Bertil- 
lon.  You  know  him,  the  official  in  charge  of  the  bureau 
of  anthropometric  measurement  for  criminals,  the  March 
Hare  turned  e.^pert  in  handwriting  at  the  Dreyfus  trial. 
He  has  the  genius  and,  at.  the  same  time,  the  disease 
of  minutias.  He  has  found  out  that,  if  you  can  only 
measure  a  man  by  certain  bone-measurements  that 
never  vary,  the  coincidence  of,  say,  half  a  dozen  of  these 
is  a  certain  clue  to  his  identity.  You  have  no  doubt 
heard  the  invention  described  a  thousand  times.  Have 
you  ever  seen  it  put  into  use?     I   have,  in  that  very 

30 


THE    COVKRNMKNTAL    MACHINE 

Palais  de  Justice,  when  they  bring  the  prisoners  in  for 
identification  before  taking  them  into  the  presence  of 
the  magistrate.  The  drift  of  the  inquiry  hes  in  the 
question,  "Have  you  ever  been  here  before?"  "No, 
monsieur;  ne\er,"'  is,  of  course,  but  the  one  thing  to 
say.  At  this  early  stage  they  never  expect  you  to  con- 
fess; it  would  spoil  sport  for  the  machine.  The  morn- 
ing charges  at  the  Paris  police  courts  are,  I  suppose, 
with  a  difference  of  local  color,  the  morning  charges 
everywhere.  It  is  no  doubt  a  terrible  thing  to  be  a 
suspect;  the  unsuspected  are  against  you  almost  in  spite 
of  themselves.  The  \ery  contrast  of  each  unkempt, 
unshaven  creature  w  ith  the  trim  garde  de  Paris  by  his 
side  is  to  his  detriment.  Then  he  is  led  to  the  measur- 
ing-stand,— invited  to  place  himself  there  is,  I  believe, 
the  proper  phrase, — and  the  attendant,  who  might  be 
cutting  his  hair  or  taking  his  orders  for  a  suit  of  clothes, 
cries  out  measurement  No.  i.  It  is  noted  on  a  card. 
There  may  be  a  thousand  measurements  like  it,  among 
the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  records  to  which  they  have 
constant  access,  so  our  old  offender  may  still  keep  a 
good  heart.  But  at  the  second  call,  of  course,  assum- 
ing a  further  correspondence,  we  make  a  huge  stride 
from  the  general  to  the  particular.  Somebody,  clearly, 
has  been  here  before  with  the  two  measurements,  say  of 
mid-finger  joint  and  frontal  bone,  exactly  answering  to 
these  new  ones.  Should  a  third  correspondence  be  es- 
tablished, all  but  the  "dead  beats"  begin  to  look  grave. 
Yes,  there  is  certainly  another  card  up  there  in  the  ar- 
chives in  perfect  agreement  so  far  with  the  one  we  are 
making  out.  At  this  point  M.  Bertillon,  feeling  that 
there  is  no  more  sport  with  this  bird,  seems  politely  to 

3^ 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

inquire  if  he  is  to  go  on:  "Come,  own  up!"  Rut  most 
hunted  things  run  till  they  die;  and  "  No,  monsieur; 
never  here  before,"  is  still  the  rule.  I'inally  they  close 
down  on  him,  by  taking  down  the  old  card,  and  show- 
ing him  his  old  photograph  neatly  pasted  on  the  back, 
and  dated  perhaps  a  dozen  years  ago.  With  this  the 
baffled  \vretch  shrugs  his  shoulders  as  a  sign  that  the 
game  of  hide-and-seek  is  up,  and  is  marched  off  into 
another  room  to  have  his  portrait  taken  anew  for  the 
appendix  to  the  record.  He  is  often  betrayed  by  his 
stare  of  amused  curiosity  at  the  old  one,  as  he  recog- 
nizes a  forgotten  necktie,  a  forgotten  trimming  of  the 
hair,  jjcrhaps  some  traces  of  a  forgotten  candor  of 
youth.  The  Bertillon  method  is  the  perfection  of  the 
governmental  machine,  in  one  of  its  purely  mechanical 
developments.  It  is  fascinating  to  an  eminently  scien- 
tific nation  to  think  that,  with  the  aid  of  science,  justice 
can  work  with  this  positive  certainty.  Some  of  them, 
no  doubt,  dream  of  a  day  when  the  Rontgen  rays  w  ill 
be  turned  with  success  into  the  criminal  mind,  and  trials 
and  confessions  will  alike  become  a  superfluity. 

The  towers  of  Notre  Dame,  standing  clear  against 
the  sky,  may  serve  to  remind  us  of  the  great  struggle 
on  the  part  of  the  statesmen  to  bring  the  church  into  the 
machine,  as  a  real  effective  force  working  heart  and 
soul  for  the  Republic.  But  they  are  thwarted  by  the 
free-thinkers  on  the  one  side,  who  would  like  to  make 
agnosticism  a  cult,  and  by  the  church  itself,  with  its  tra- 
ditional respect  for  the  monarchical  system.  The  too 
logical  mind  of  the  French  abhors  a  transaction  on  the 
principle  of  give  and  take.  It  is  for  all  or  none,  and  it 
better  understands  the  tyranny  of  an  opponent's  usur- 

32 


THE    PRESIDENT  (FELIX    FAURE)   BESTOWING   THE   HAT 
UPON    A   CARDINAL 


THE    GOVERNMENTAL    MACHINE 

pation  than  what  it  regards  as  the  weakness  of  his  c()ni- 
promise.  The  Pope  has  made  unheard-of  efforts  to 
bring  the  parties  together  by  enjoining  a  hearty  accep- 
tance of  the  RepubHc  on  the  part  of  the  Clerical  and  Mo- 
narchical parties.  And  it  is  to  be  noted  that,  at  the  last 
elections,  the  "Rallies,"  who  represent  the  Royalists 
that  have  come  over  to  the  Republic,  returned  in  in- 
creased numbers.  But,  then,  so  did  the  Socialists,  and 
between  these  two  there  is,  I  think,  racial  war.  The 
Radicals,  as  a  free-thinking  party,  dream  of  a  scheme 
of  reasoned  morality  that  shall  take  the  place  of  the  old 
religion  and  be  a  new^  one.  So  they  issue  neat  little 
manuals,  in  which  they  show,  Socratically,  the  logical 
necessity  of  doing  good  to  your  neighbor,  and,  as  it 
were,  defy  you  to  be  other  than  virtuous  if  you  have  a 
due  regard  for  the  syllogism.  The  late  Paul  Bert  spent 
no  little  of  his  precious  time  in  these  exercises.  The 
church,  all  the  churches,  are  constitutionally  parts  of 
the  machine.  They  are  subventioned  by  the  state — 
Catholics,  Protestants,  Jews,  and  exen  Mohammedans, 
alike.  They  are  under  the  supervision  of  the  minister 
of  public  worship.  The  bishops  are  nominated  by  the 
government,  and  even  when  the  French  cardinals  have 
received  their  appointment  from  the  Pope,  they  still 
come  back  to  have  their  hats  handed  to  them  by  the 
President  in  solemn  audience.  It  has  been  said  that  if 
the  church  could  see  its  way  to  a  perfect  reconciliation, 
it  might  yet  form  the  basis  of  a  dominant  conservative 
party,  and  that  most  P'renchmen  want  no  more  than  to 
have  the  priest  in  his  place.  I  doubt  it.  Besides,  can 
he  consent  to  take  a  mere  place  with  the  rest?  By  vir- 
tue of  his  profession,  he  aspires  to  nothing  less  than  the 

35 


PARIS    OF     rO-DAY 

dominion  of  the  whole  of  hfe.  The  Radicals  are  just  as 
strenuous  in  their  determination  to  find  a  substitute  for 
him.  Ingersoll  was  only  a  criticism,  after  all.  Free 
thought  here  is,  in  thousands  of  minds,  a  working 
scheme.  "Ni  Dieu  ni  Maitre"  was  the  device  of  fierce 
old  Blanqui,  that  tameless  lion  of  revolt.  There  is  a 
whole  literature  of  religion  without  God. 

Right  below  us  lies  the  sinister  military  school.  The 
men  that  rule  there  form  part  of  the  machine,  and  the 
difficulty  with  them  just  now  is  that  they  want  to  be  the 
whole  of  it.  They  sulk  with  the  civil  power  on  the  one 
side,  as  the  church  sulks  with  it  on  the  other.  The  hold 
of  the  arm)-  on  opinion  is  enormous,  just  because  it  has 
become  identified  with  the  people  as  a  vast  national 
militia.  Every  man  serves,  and  most  men  bring  away 
with  them  some  professional  sympathy  with  the  service. 
As  the  grocer  watches  the  passing  regiment  at  Long- 
champ,  he  feels  that  he  is  with  comrades,  and  that  their 
very  cloth  is  only  a  sort  of  best  suit  he  has  in  reserve. 
The  whole  future  of  free  institutions  in  I -ranee  lies  in 
that  grocer's  frame  of  mind.  If  he  remembers  that  he 
is  a  citizen  first  and  a  soldier  afterward,  the  Republic  is 
safe.  If  not,  and  he  keeps  the  citizen  in  the  back- 
ground, then  there  is  no  knowing  wdiat  usurpations  may 
not  be  dared  and  done.  I  am  assured  by  one  who 
ought  to  know  that  the  soldier  is  still  the  citizen,  and 
the  republican  citizen,  in  arms.  But  the  same  authority 
admits  that,  when  he  served  his  term,  he  scarcely  looked 
at  a  newspaper,  or  took  any  interest  in  the  questions  oi 
the  day.  The  barrack  spirit  had  marked  him  for  its 
own.  The  prevalent  uncertainty  on  this  point  is 
sometimes  ludicrous   in   its  eftects.      On  the  return  of  a 

36 


THE    GOVERNMENTAL    MACHINE 

successful  cunuiiander  the  first  care  of  the  go\ernuient 
is  to  keep  him  out  of  the  way.  When  General  Dodds 
came  back  from  Dahomey  he  was  isolated  as  though 
he  had  brought  the  plague  with  him.  It  was  the  same 
with  poor  Major  Marchand  the  other  day.  If  America 
were  France,  Admiral  Dewey  would  be  invited,  not  to 
say  ordered,  to  recruit  his  health  in  the  country,  and 
the  government,  while  still  constrained  to  offer  him  a 
smiling  welcome,  would  tremble  every  time  he  ap- 
proached Washington  or  New  York.  In  distant  colo- 
nies, far,  far  beyond  the  purview  of  the  tallest  of 
conceivable  Eiffel  Towers,  the  generals  have  sometimes 
flatly  refused  obedience  to  the  civil  governor.  The 
trembling  government,  which  would  have  liked  to  shoot 
them,  has  had  to  go  on  smiling.  Take  with  all  this,  as 
symptomatic,  the  despatches  just  to  hand  from  the 
French  Sudan.  An  officer  was  recalled  for  cruelties. 
He  turned,  with  his  native  following,  on  another  officer 
who  bore  the  message,  and  massacred  him  and  the 
whites  of  his  mission  to  a  man.  Such  is  the  official  ac- 
count of  an  un\erified  report,  and  they  may  still  suc- 
ceed in  shifting  the  blame  to  the  natives;  but  some  of 
the  wilder  newspapers  say  that  an  African  satrapy  un- 
der a  soldier  of  fortune  would  be  entirely  to  their  taste. 
The  machine  is  only  less  strong  in  social  than  in  po- 
litical influence.  The  administrative  institutions  are 
coyps  lie  societe  as  well  as  corps  d'etat.  Each  of  them 
has  its  salons,  managed  by  clever  women  who,  in  in- 
triguing for  their  husbands,  often  against  one  another, 
still  strengthen  the  general  framework.  The  prefect's 
wife  looks  after  the  dejjartment,  as  the  President's  wife 
is  supposed  to  look  after  the  state.     She  encourages 

11 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

waverers,  gives  the  disaffected  to  understand  that  they 
need  not  be  altogether  without  hope.  Society  proper, 
or  improper,  may  think  itself  entitled  to  gibe  and  scoff, 
as  it  sometimes  does,  I  believe,  in  other  republics.  But 
nothing  can  deprive  the  official  world  of  influence,  since 
it  holds  patronage  and  power.  Every  one  of  the  pro- 
vincial capitals  lying  beyond  us  on  all  sides  in  the 
depths  of  the  haze  has  its  official  circle,  where  the 
powers  that  be  try  to  agree  not  to  differ  too  openly,  in 
the  interest  of  the  general  stability  of  things.  The  uni- 
versity professors  and  their  wives  belong  to  this  set. 
The  superior  clergy  do  not  refuse  their  countenance 
when  the  professors  show  a  proper  outward  conformity 
of  respect  for  the  church,  and  reserve  the  Voltairean 
epigram  for  the  fireside.  The  general  in  command  of 
the  district,  or,  more  strictly  speaking,  Mme.  la  Gene- 
rale,  brings  the  officers  to  the  official  dances,  at  which 
also  the  district  bench  and  bar  shake  a  loose  leg. 

A  ball  at  the  Elysee  is  a  great  function  which  has 
been  in  process  of  gradual  democratization  ever  since 
the  foundation  of  the  Republic.  Mme.  de  MacMahon 
was  about  the  last  who  tried  to  keep  it  select.  It  was 
an  anachronism.  The  old  couches  sociales  sulked,  and 
begged  to  reserve  themselves  for  her  private  parties. 
The  new  were  not  asked.  The  true  theory  of  such  a 
gathering  is  the  one  that  now  prevails.  It  is  a  review 
of  all  the  forces  that  make  for  order  and  for  stability, 
and  it  excludes  no  one  who  has  a  place  of  importance 
in  the  administrative  machine. 

The  diplomatists  still  have  the  privilege  of  a  room  to 
themselves.  But  this  is  more  or  less  open  to  the  pub- 
lic fraze,  and  it  serves  to  concentrate  some  of  the  most 


is' 


38 


THE    DOWNFALL   OL   A    MINISTRY    IN    THE 
CHAMBER   OF   DEPUTIES 


THE    GOVERNMKN lAL    MACHINE 

striking  effects  of  the  spectacle.  To-night"s  ball  at  tiie 
Hotel  de  Ville,  which,  if  we  could  stay  long  enough, 
might  presently  signalize  itself  to  us  as  a  scheme  of  illu- 
mination, is  a  still  more  characteristic  sight.  It  is  a 
festival  of  all  the  civic  forces,  where  the  municipal 
councilor  and  the  district  mayor  may  feel  that  they 
have  been  admitted  to  the  great  partnership  of  the  gov- 
ernment. The  note  of  brotherhood,  rather  than  of 
class  distinction,  at  all  these  gatherings  is  the  cross  of 
the  Legion  of  Honor,  in  all  its  glittering  grades.  Most 
other  orders  seem  to  cry,  "  Stand  off!  "  to  the  mass  of 
mankind.  This  one  cries,  "Come  over  and  helj)  us!" 
to  every  active  brain  and  strong  hand.  To  have  it 
not  is  more  of  a  re])roach  than  to  have  it  is  a  distinc- 
tion. Its  true  and  entirely  sound  significance  is  there. 
It  is  a  public  certificate  of  the  fact  that,  whatever  your 
work  may  be,  you  have  done  that  work  well  —  a  uni- 
versal brevet  of  eminence  in  every  line  of  lal)()r  and  of 
effort  conducive  to  the  common  good.  You  ma\-  not 
want  it,  but — wliat  will  people  think?  One  day  (ius- 
tave  Dore  began  to  languish  with  a  sort  of  green- 
sickness of  melancholy  wliich  no  one  could  precisely 
diagnose.  His  aged  mother  was  called  into  consulta- 
tion,  and  affirmed  with  emphasis  that  he  was  pining  for 
the  Legion  of  Honor.  The  matter  was  immediately 
referred,  in  confidence,  to  the  minister  of  fine  arts,  and 
the  result  was  a  cross  and  a  cure. 

Such  is  the  great  governmental  machine — a  national 
invention,  like  the  corset,  and  indispensable  to  the  figure 
of  France.  It  keeps  the  country  in  shape  amid  a  tht)u- 
sand  shocks.  It  has  scarcely  known  change  since  the 
time  of  its  founder.     It  has  served  the  varying  purposes 

41 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

of  Louis  XVIII  and  Charles  X  and  Louis  Philippe,  of 
the  Republic  of  1848  and  the  Second  Empire,  and  while 
the  servant,  it  has  also  been  the  master  of  all.  It  has 
kept  up  the  real  continuity  of  institutions,  and  has  saved 
the  democracy  from  itself  by  opposing  a  solid  rampart 
to  social,  as  distinct  from  merely  political,  innovation. 
It  is  a  sort  of  supreme  court  in  the  domain  of  action, 
ever  engaged  in  looking  after  the  foundations  of  things, 
and  tempering  the  wind  of  crude  doctrine  to  the  lamb 
of  the  body  politic  so  frequently  shorn.  Without  it,  or 
something  like  it,  that  is  to  say  without  a  strong  execu- 
tive of  a  kind,  Trance  would  have  gone  to  pieces  a 
dozen  times  this  century. 

But  no  human  contrivance  is  perfect,  and  the  ma- 
chine has  one  weak  spot.  Its  heel  of  Achilles  is  the 
Parliament,  and  especially  the  Chamber  of  Deputies. 
The  Chamber  would  be  well  enough  if  it  were  d 
r Aniericaiiie,  instead  of  d  VAuglaise — if  it  had  nut 
the  fatal  power  of  unmaking  ministries  by  a  vote.  With 
reasonably  permanent  cabinets,  policy  would  be  fairly 
continuous,  as  well  as  administration.  As  it  is,  almost 
any  determined  minority  can  upset  the  ministerial 
apple-cart  by  an  intrigue.  The  malcontents  have  only 
to  lie  in  wait,  and  snatch  a  hostile  division  when  nobody 
is  looking,  and  out  the  government  goes,  though  it  may 
have  just  given  itself  the  proud  title  of  the  "  strongest 
of  modern  times."  Something  is  wanted  that  would 
confine  the  deputies  to  their  business  of  making  the 
laws,  and  secure  the  administration  in  its  function  of 
executing  them. 

The  wrecking  of  ministries  has  become  a  mere  trick, 
Hke  the  spot  stroke  in  billiards,  and,  in  the  interests  of 

+2 


THK    GOVERNMENTAL    iMACHINE 

France,  it  should  he  barred.  It  was  a  reproach  as  far 
back  as  the  time  of  Louis  Philippe.  Murger's  Bohe- 
mian, on  moving  into  new  lodgings,  orders  the  con- 
cierge to  wake  him  every  morning  by  calling  through 
the  keyhole  the  day  of  the  week  and  of  the  month,  the 
moon's  cjuarter,  the  state  of  the  weather,  and  "  the  gov- 
ernment under  which  we  live."  Amid  Moderate  Re- 
publicans, Radical  Republicans,  Radical  Socialists,  So- 
cialists dyed  in  the  wool,  Reactionary  Monarchists  ditto, 
and  Rallies,  who  have  graciously  accepted  the  Republic 
under  the  promise  of  a  reasonable  share  of  the  loaves 
and  fishes,  there  is  always  sure  to  be  somebody  to 
offend.  If  you  hold  the  disinterested  position  of  a 
mere  observer,  and  have  access  to  the  lobbies,  you  may 
spy  the  tempest  on  the  horizon  when  the  cloud  is  no 
bigger  than  a  man's  hand.  I  have  seen  M.  Clemen- 
ceau  as  storm-fiend-in-chief,  and  M.  Clovis  Hugues  in 
subcharge  of  the  Cave  of  the  Winds  —  the  latter  per- 
haps with  a  twitching  palm  which  manifestly  itches  for 
its  threatened  application  to  another  member's  face. 
The  cloud  bursts  as  by  order ;  the  ministry  is  laid  on 
its  back.  Sometimes  there  is  no  warning,  and  the  ca- 
tastrophe comes  as  by  a  bolt  out  of  a  clear  sky.  The 
machine,  of  course,  is  no  more  disturbed  by  it  than  the 
solid  rock  would  be  in  the  like  case ;  but  the  moral 
effect  is  none  the  less  to  be  deplored.  The  worst  evil 
is  the  way  in  which  it  uses  up  the  governing  men. 
They  get  tired  of  being  laid  on  their  backs  for  nothing, 
and  at  every  fresh  crisis  there  is  a  greater  difficulty  in 
finding  entries  for  this  foolish  sport.  The  positive  re- 
fusals to  serve  become  more  numerous  and  more  em- 
barrassing, and  the  fear  grows  that  the  President  will 

4;> 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

finall}'  have  to  athcrtisc  in  the  newspapers  for  a  min- 
ister. There  ought  to  he  a  club  of  ex-ministers,  or  a 
monthly  dinner  of  them,  where  they  might  meet  and 
compare  notes  on  the  futility  of  all  effort  to  please  a 
people  with  disease  of  the  nerves. 

As  the  bell  gives  the  signal,  and  it  is  "all  aboard" 
for  the  descent,  I  reflect  that  France  will  have  to  watch 
herself,  or  she  may  find  this  disease  incurable.  Her 
misfortune  is  that  she  has  been  taught  to  live  from  this 
part  of  the  organism  in  public  affairs.  Her  private  life 
is  free  from  all  reproach  of  the  kind.  There  the  nation 
is  serious,  calculating,  close,  ever  haunted  by  the  mel- 
ancholy of  a  too  keenly  prophetic  vision  of  the  possi- 
bilities of  ill.  It  must  find  an  outlet  somewhere  for  the 
mere  spiritual  waste  of  its  despondency,  and,  like  the 
rest  of  us,  it  has  a  tendency  to  dump  its  rubbish  into 
the  public  domain.  I  am  convinced  that  it  would  be 
less  frivolous  in  conduct  if  it  were  less  sad  at  heart. 


44 


EVENING   AT   THE   GREAT   GATE   OF   THE   EXPOSITION 


PARIS    OF    THE    FAUBOURGS 


PARIS  being  a  great  manuiacturing  city,  its  plebs 
have  naturally  had  the  ambition  to  rule  the 
roast.  This  is  what  has  given  it  the  importance 
it  has  had  all  through  French  history.  Multiply  the 
natural  quickness  of  the  race  into  the  development  of 
that  quickness  by  the  practice  of  the  skilled  crafts,  and 
this  product  again  into  the  sense  of  great  events  ever 
passing  on  a  great  stage,  and  you  have,  in  the  colossal 
result,  the  medium  in  which  the  Paris  man  in  the  street 
has  ever  moved.  He  is  the  heir  of  the  ages  of  the 
most  stimulating  suggestions  of  glory  and  power.  So 
fashioned,  like  the  Athenian  of  old,  he  has  naturally 
come  to  regard  himself  as  a  sort  of  center  of  things. 
He  is  one  to  whom  the  making  of  a  new  constitution 
for  his  country,  or,  for  that  matter,  for  the  human  race, 
is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world. 

Hence  the  self-importance  of  the  faubourgs  from  a 
very  early  stage  of  their  history.  The  word  is  used 
here,  not  in  its  etymological  sense  of  a  suburb,  an  out- 
skirt,  a  part  without  the  gates,  but,  on  the  contrary,  of 
a  part  that  has  come  very  much  within  them  as  the  city 

4-9 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

has  enlarged  its  boundaries.  Nor,  even  in  this  sense, 
does  it  apply  to  those  faubourgs  whieh  are  still  the 
haunt  of  the  richer  class.  The  faubourg  of  my  theme 
is  any  part  to  which  the  poor  have  been  pushed  from 
the  center  to  the  circumference,  or  shut  out  from  the 
center  on  their  invading  march  from  the  outside.  Even 
in  this  sense  it  is  still  hardl}'  to  be  regarded  as  a  geo- 
graphical expression,  and  is  not  much  more  than  a  con- 
\'entional  term.  Wherever  the  toilers  and  the  small 
folk  of  every  social  category  are  gathered  together, 
there  you  have  a  faubourg  "within  the  meaning  of  the 
act."  The  great  manufacturing  plain  of  St.-Denis  is 
still  a  faubourg  beyond  the  walls,  but  it  has  a  street  of 
the  faubourg  within  them. 

The  faubourg  has  ever  played  its  part  with  the  most 
perfect  good  faith.  Its  successive  generations  have 
been  animated  by  the  hope  of  ultimate  success  in  the 
invention  of  a  perfect  governmental  machine.  This 
contrivance  is  to  do  the  trick  for  the  regeneration  of 
mankind  by  a  device  as  simple  as  that  of  putting  a 
penny  in  the  slot.  It  is  to  turn  out  equality,  fraternit}-, 
and  e\'en  liberty  itself,  as  a  kind  of  bonus,  by  an  auto- 
matic process  that  precludes  the  need  of  personal  exer- 
tion. The  convenience  of  this  arrangement  is  that  it  is 
less  concerned  with  the  conduct  of  the  regenerators 
than  with  the  conduct  of  those  who  are  to  be  regen- 
erated. \'ou  look  after  your  neighbor,  and  allow  your- 
self a  reasonable  exemption  from  watchfulness  as 
inventor's  royalty. 

The  people  of  the  faubourgs,  the  humble  folk  gen- 
erally,—  small  traders  and  small  annuitants  as  well  as 
workmen, —  like  all   the   rest  of  us,  are  the  product  of 

50 


THE   CANAL   F^ORT   OF   LA  VILLETTE 


PARIS    OF    THE    FAUBOURGS 

their  surroundings.  They  arc  shaped  by  the  private 
life  and  l)y  the  pubHc  hfe,  by  the  street  and  the  home. 
These  people  in  Paris  owe  a  great  deal  to  the  public 
life.  It  condescends  to  their  needs  for  color,  variety, 
movement,  in  a  way  universal  among  the  Latin  nations. 
Out  of  doors  is  merely  their  larger  home,  and  they 
expect  to  find  adequate  provision  there  for  every  kind 
of  enjoyment.  Our  own  race  tends  to  regard  that 
domain  as  a  mere  thoroughfare  between  the  workshop 
and  the  fireside,  where  all  our  interests  are  centered.  If 
it  serves  that  purpose  that  is  about  all  we  ask  of  it.  It 
may  be  as  ugly  as  it  likes,  and,  within  certain  limits  of 
indulgence,  almost  as  dirty.  To  the  Frenchman  it  is 
more  than  a  place  of  transit;  it  is  almost  a  place  of 
sojourn. 

So  the  Parisian  common  man  has  his  share  of  the 
Champs-Elysees  and  of  the  boulevards  in  his  freedom 
of  access  to  their  fountains  and  promenades  and  their 
bordering  alleys  of  tender  green.  He  comes  down- 
stairs to  them,  so  to  speak,  as  soon  as  the  scavengers 
have  done  their  timely  work.  He  descends  to  his 
thoroughfare  as  the  millionaire  expects  to  descend  to 
his  breakfast-room  or  his  study,  with  all  its  appoint- 
ments fresh  from  the  broom,  and  shining  in  their  bright- 
ness of  metal  and  glass.  So,  whatever  the  gloom  of 
tlie  domestic  prospect,  his  street  helps  him  to  feel  good. 
The  beauty  of  the  statuary,  of  the  public  buildings,  is  a 
means  to  the  same  end.  For  nothing  the  poorest  of 
poor  devils  may  see  the  glorious  bronzes  in  the  terrace 
garden  of  the  Tuileries,  the  outdoor  figures  of  the  Lux- 
embourg, the  great  horses  of  the  Place  de  la  Concorde, 
the  magnificent  compositions  of  the  Arch.     The  very 

53 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

lamp-post  that  will  light  his  way  at  nightfall  serves  the 
purpose  of  a  thing  of  beauty  all  through  the  day.  Com- 
pare it  with  the  English  bar  of  cast-iron,  hideous  to  the 
eye  in  form  and  color,  foul  with  the  mud-stains  of  years 


SCENE    AT   A    CRECHE 


of  traffic.  The  Frenchmen  must  have  it  suave  and 
shapely  in  its  lines,  a  model  of  good  Renaissance  orna- 
ment in  its  decorations,  bronze  in  its  material,  and 
washed  and  polished  every  week  or  so  to  keep  it  smart. 
Extend  this  difference  in  the  point  of  view  to  the 
whole  public  scene,  and  one  can  understand  why  the 


54- 


PARIS    OF    THE    FAUBOURGS 

street  is  the  distinctive  thing  in  Paris.  The  very  plans 
for  the  houses  have  to  pass  municipal  muster.  You 
build  as  you  please  only  within  certain  limits,  and  your 
right  of  purchase  includes  no  license  of  monstrosity. 
The  very  letters  in  which  you  advertise  your  name  and 
business  must  be  in  gold-leaf — at  any  rate,  in  the  prin- 
cipal thoroughfares.  Compare  the  obelisk  of  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde  with  the  obelisk  of  the  Thames  Em- 
bankment—  the  first  standing  clean  and  clear-cut  on  its 
fine  pedestal,  with  its  whole  message  like  a  sheet  of 
print  to  any  one  who  knows  the  character;  the  other 
begrimed  with  the  London  soot,  and  with  the  fine 
figures  at  its  base  bearing  innumerable  traces  of  their 
degradation  of  use  as  a  playground  for  the  hobnailed 
urchins.  The  Parisian  has  looked  on  such  things  from 
his  earliest  infancy.  He  has  never,  except  by  pure 
mischance,  looked  on  anvthing  that  is  not  beautiful  in 
the  public  domain.  The  very  house-fronts  must  be 
scraped  for  him  into  their  original  tint  of  still  cream 
every  two  or  three  years.  He  is  born  to  a  splendid 
tradition  of  culture  in  the  principles  of  taste.  The 
poorest  wretch  who  munches  his  crust  in  the  open  sees 
nothing  that  is  not  fine,  whatever  his  luck  in  his  nightly 
lair.  For  all  the  daylight  hours  he  may  be  as  lucky  in 
that  respect  as  the  porter  in  the  halls  of  Sindbad.  And 
he  has  the  equivalent  of  the  purse  of  sequins  in  his  share 
of  the  millions  that  ha\e  been  spent  on  his  morning 
promenade,  from  the  shady  Bois,  at  one  end  of  the 
prospect,  to  the  tiniest  garden  that  gives  him  an  oasis 
of  comfort  on  his  way  to  the  gate  of  X'incennes,  at  the 
other. 

The  boulevard  is  all  life,  and  well-nigh  all  beauty,  in 

55 


PARIS    OF     lO-DAY 

the  stately  frfintas^es  —  beauty  of  high  art  at  Rarbe- 
dienne's  and  in  the  picture-shops,  beauty  of  texture  and 
dyes,  of  fine  craftsmanship  in  a  thousand  articles  of  lux- 
ury, in  the  others.  Especially  is  it  all  life.  The  appeal 
to  the  fancy  and  the  imagination  is  not  to  be  missed  in 
its  insistency.  The  kiosks  give  our  quidnunc  a  sense 
of  all-abounding  vitality.  Here  the  hawkers  shout 
their  latest  sensation  from  the  uttermost  ends  of  the 
earth,  new  editions  piping  hot  with  nothing  in  them, 
and  yet  with  everything  in  their  power  of  providing  for 
the  passing  moment,  which  is  the  all  in  all.  His  ene- 
mies, home  and  foreign,  are  caricatured  in  the  gaudy 
colored  prints.  The  soldiers  pass,  the  idlers  take  their 
afternoon  absinthe.  It  is  a  pageant  which  does  not 
depend  for  its  effect  on  the  consideration  whether  you 
see  it  from  a  bench  on  the  trottoir  or  from  a  fauteuil 
under  the  awning,  for,  thanks  to  the  municipal  foliage, 
the  bench  is  shaded  just  as  pleasantly  as  the  chair. 

The  general  result  gives  every  beholder  to  the 
manner  born  the  sense  that  he  is  a  citizen  of  no  mean 
city.  If  the  appeal  lies  too  directly  to  the  sensations 
and  too  little  to  the  reflective  part,  that  need  not  count. 
The  creature,  at  any  rate,  lives  in  every  nerve,  and  his 
tendency  to  go  off  half  primed  in  every  fugitive  fancy 
entails  no  personal  inconvenience,  since,  in  the  long  run, 
it  is  France  that  pays.  This  is  the  street  of  our  prole- 
tarian of  the  Latin  races.  You  see  it,  with  dififerences 
which  are  only  local,  in  Barcelona  and  in  Seville,  in 
P^lorence  and  in  Naples.  It  is  a  place  made  for  the 
waking  hours,  the  sleeping-quarters  being  very  much 
of  an  accident,  as  they  were  in  old  Rome. 

Still  the  question  remains.  What  sort  of  home  does  he 

56 


TOY- MAKERS 


PARIS    OF    THE    FAUBOURGS 

go  home  to?  It  is  not  a  l)ad  one  if  lie  is  a  Parisian  of 
the  working-class.  The  wife  is  still  apt  to  he  the  angel 
of  the  house  in  cleanliness,  neatness,  and  management, 
and  she  runs  no  risk  of  losing  her  wings  by  taking  to 
drink.  The  poorer  classes  throughout  the  world  have 
to  make  their  choice  between  the  life  out  of  doors  and 
the  life  within.  Even  with  the  help  of  the  angel  in  the 
house,  the  Parisian  workman  is  but  poorly  off.  She 
can  but  do  her  ])est  in  her  domain,  and  when  that 
domain  is  only  one  half  or  one  quarter  story  out  of 
seven,  she  can  hardly  be  called  a  controller  of  events. 

The  family  of  the  faubourg  is  still  too  commonly 
lodged  in  the  tenement-house,  and  that  house  in  Paris 
wants  what  it  wants  pretty  much  everywhere  else.  It 
towers  to  the  sky,  though  in  comparison  with  the  ele- 
vations common  in  Chicago  and  in  New  York  it  is  an 
ant-hill.  It  gets  light  and  air  for  the  back  rooms  from 
a  fetid  court.  Its  sanitary  arrangements — but  wh)- in- 
sist? See  one  of  these  places  in  any  latitude,  and  you 
see  them  in  all  the  broad  earth.  This  is  no  new  tliincr. 
Paris  has  built  in  the  air  for  generations.  New  \'ork 
probably  learned  the  trick  from  her  as  a  grain  of  the 
wisdom  brous^ht  home  in  the  close  fist  of  "Poor 
Richard"  on  his  return  from  abroad.  All  the  old  for- 
tified cities  built  in  the  air — built  high  and  built  narrow 
so  as  to  lessen  the  circuit  of  the  walls.  In  its  origin  it 
is  rather  ancient  need  than  modern  greed.  To  this  day 
some  of  the  highest  houses  and  the  narrowest  streets 
of  Paris  are  to  be  found  in  the  old  quarters  near  the  In- 
stitute, and  by  no  means  a  hundred  miles  from  the  Rue 
de  Seine  and  the  Rue  du  Bac.  The  latter  was  once  a 
real  "street  of  the  brook" — a  brook  gradually  fouled 

59 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

into  a  gutter,  and  running  so  fouled  within  the  memory 
of  those  now  hving. 

The  contrast  in  the  workmen's  homes  is  between  the 
fairly  neat  and  wcll-ordcrcd  interiors  and  the  abomina- 


WINE-TRUCKS    AT   THE    WINE    MARKET 


tions  that  begin  at  the  staircase.  Our  race  strives 
more  for  the  amenity  and  the  independence  of  the  small 
house.  Within  the  fortifications  of  Paris  the  small 
house  is  almost  unknown,  the  yard  or  garden  patch,  as 
the  possession  of  a  single  family,  quite  unknown. 
There  are  great  possibilities  in  the  small  house,  if  you 

60 


PARIS    OF    THE    FAUBOURGS 

choose  to  make  the  best  of  them,  and  there  is  still  the 
individualized  independence  dear  to  the  Anglo-Saxon, 
even  if  you  make  the  worst.  The  hideous  neglect  of 
cleanliness  and  beauty  in  the  public  domain,  in  the 
poorer  quarters  of  London,  is  one  result  of  the  differ- 
ence of  conditions.  The  poor  man  is  content  to  find 
nothing  attractive  in  the  thoroughfares,  because  there 
is  his  own  "  little  bit  of  a  place  "  at  the  journey's  end. 
As  the  great  model  lodging-houses  multiply,  however, 
he  is  losing  this  compensation.  His  demand  for  its 
equivalent  out  of  doors  is  therefore  beginning  to  tell  in 
the  labors  of  the  County  Council  for  the  planting  of 
gardens  and  for  the  merely  decorative  improvement  of 
the  streets. 

The  poor  man  of  the  Latin  race  met  smiling  on  the 
promenades  seems  to  say,  "  Please  don't  follow  me 
home."  His  nights,  then,  are  something  of  a  terror  if 
his  days  are  a  delight.  One  is  reminded  of  the  choice 
presented  to  fancy  in  the  nursery  tale.  Under  which 
fairy  will  you  take  service  —  the  one  who  gives  a  wak- 
ing experience  of  every  kind  of  happiness,  with  a  sleep- 
ing life  of  all  the  horrors  of  nightmare,  or  the  other, 
who  offers  the  experience  the  other  way  about?  Be 
careful  how  you  choose  offhand.  The  Frenchman  of 
the  great  cities  may  sleep  in  a  cupboard  after  roaming 
all  day  in  a  pleasance. 

The  workman  lives  in  a  barrack.  The  small  house 
has  vanished.  Sheer  necessity  has  compelled  the 
builders  to  forget  the  Stoic  warning  against  raising  the 
roofs  of  the  houses  instead  of  the  souls  of  the  citizens. 
The  evil  is  that  rich  and  poor  now  dwell  by  tribes,  each 
in  its  own  ([uarter.     The  very  poor  are  in  one  ward, 

6i 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

the  half  poor  in  another,  and  so  on  until  you  reach  dis- 
tricts where  it  is  all  millionaire.  In  the  old  days  the 
poor  of  Paris,  like  the  poor  of  London,  abode  all  over  the 
place.  It  was  the  lower  part  of  the  house  for  the  rich,  the 
upper  part  for  the  less  prosperous,  but  the  whole  social 
order  under  one  roof.  There  have  been  many  laws  to 
amend  this  state  of  things  in  France,  one  of  the  earliest 
of  the  modern  dating  from  1850.  It  failed  because  it  was 
permissive.  It  is  thought  that  the  state  should  make 
some  gigantic  effort  to  house  everybody  in  the  right 
way.  The  money  might  be  found  in  the  savings-bank 
fund,  now  amounting  in  paper  to  betw^een  two  and 
three  thousand  millions  of  francs.  Rut  where  is  the 
savings-bank  fund?  Nobody  can  say.  It  is  dis- 
tributed all  over  the  surface  of  French  finance.  It  has 
served  as  a  sort  of  lucky  bag  into  which  the  embar- 
rassed minister  dips  when  he  is  at  a  loss  for  a  balance. 
Some  fear  national  bankruptcy  on  this  issue  alone,  and 
a  second  Revolution  as  bad  as  the  first. 

For  all  the  years  since  the  beginning  of  the  century 
these  thrifty  and  industrious  people  have  been  pouring 
their  savings  into  the  hands  of  the  state  in  the  sure  and 
certain  hope  of  finding  them  at  call.  They  could  tiot 
find  them  in  the  lump,  and  a  panic  might  have  the  most 
fearful  consequences.  Then,  money  or  no  money, 
where  are  you  to  build  ?  It  is  impossible  to  continue 
the  invasion  of  the  skies,  so  there  is  nothing  for  it  but 
lateral  extension.  \\'hy  not  take  the  fortifications,  just 
as  they  have  already  done  in  Vienna,  raze  the  walls,  fill 
the  ditches,  and  make  a  workman's  zone  ?  The  scheme 
is  feasible.  It  would  put  the  people  on  the  circumfer- 
ence of  Paris  within  striking  distance  of  the  center  or 

62 


THH   AFTHRNOON    BITE 

WORKINO-MHN    AT    A    BKASSKKIE 


PARIS    OF    THE    FAUBOURGS 

of  the  suburbs.  But  it  supposes  a  good  civic  railway 
system,  and,  happily,  there  is  just  a  beginning  of  this  in 
the  new  line  (to  be  finished  for  the  Exposition)  which 
runs  through  the  city  from  east  to  west.  It  has  already 
burrowed  under  the  Champs-Elysees,  and  it  is  now  well 
on  its  way  down  the  Rue  de  Rivoli. 

Without  this  and  a  good  deal  more  of  the  same  kind 
Paris  would  soon  be  impossible.  The  omnibus  sys- 
tem, even  with  its  enormous  supplementary  force  of  the 
tramways,  has  completely  broken  down  as  a  service  for 
the  needs  of  this  vast  population ;  for  Paris  grows 
worse  overcrowded  than  ever,  owing  to  the  work  for 
the  Exposition,  and,  indeed,  to  the  rebuilding  generally. 
This  brings  up  thousands  from  all  parts  of  the  country, 
and  most  of  them  come  to  stay.  Some,  like  the 
masons,  come  only  for  the  summer  work,  and  in  the 
winter  go  back  to  their  villages.  While  they  are  here 
they  lodge  in  wretched  garnis,  or  furnished  lodgings, 
like  Chinese,  sleeping  no  one  quite  knows  how  many  in 
a  room. 

Of  eight  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand  habita- 
tions, great  and  small,  six  hundred  thousand  are  at  a 
yearly  rental  below  five  hundred  francs,  or  a  hundred 
dollars.  Of  course  by  habitations  I  do  not  mean  sepa- 
rate houses,  but  merely  separate  dwellings  of  any  and 
every  sort.  Think  of  what  this  means,  and  of  how- 
little  in  the  way  of  house-room  and  of  the  decencies  of 
domestic  life  those  who  pay  so  little  can  expect.  But 
there  is  worse  behind.  Some  habitations  are  below 
sixty  dollars.  This  surely  cannot  give  the  right  to 
much  more  than  a  cupboard,  and  a  very  dirty  cupboard 
at  that.      Nor  is  this  the  lowest  depth.      I  ha\'e  seen  the 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

rag-pickers  in  shanties  with  mere  ground  for  the  floor. 
In  one  and  the  same  hut  they  sorted  the  filth,  housed 
the  family,  worked,  cooked,  and  slept,  were  born,  and 
died.     An  infant,  who  had  just  gone  through  the  former 


THE    EXHIBITION    GATE    OPPOSITE    THE    INVAI.IDES 

process,  lay  in  its  cradle  in  one  corner,  and  beside  the 
cradle  was  a  crib,  where  two  others  slept ;  a  bed  for 
father,  mother,  and  yet  an  infant  more,  occupied  another 
corner.  Rags,  bones,  broken  bottles,  and  bits  of  rusty 
iron  completed  the  furniture. 

This  is  all  the  more  trying  in  Paris,  because  in  their 
work    the    Parisians    are    a  highly   domesticated    folk. 

66 


PARIS    OF    THK    FAUBOURGS 

Wherever  they  can  do  it,  they  work  at  home.  The 
hardest  thing  in  the  world  is  to  bring  the  artificial- 
flower  makers  into  a  factory.  All  the  fine  taste  of  these 
girls  seems  to  go  out  of  them  when  you  range  them  in 
rows.  What  they  like  is  to  be  left  in  their  own  garrets  and 
to  feign  nature  at  their  ease  with  a  modeling-tool  and  a 
tinted  rag.  It  is,  in  one  view,  the  French  passion  for  little 
industries  of  all  kinds.  They  put  off  the  evil  day  of 
machinery  as  long  as  they  can.  Whole  districts  are  still 
cultivated  with  the  spade.  Many  Parisian  industries 
depend  only  less  on  hand-labor  than  the  Japanese. 

This  is  specially  the  case  in  the  toy  trade,  a  consider- 
able item  in  the  exports  of  France.  All  those  fanciful 
creations  which  are  the  delight  of  the  boulevards  on 
the  I  St  of  January  are  more  or  less  traceable  to  dismal 
back  rooms,  looking  out  on  walls  of  giant  buildings 
which  know  no  visitation  of  the  sun.  Even  where  the 
curious  industry  is  established  on  the  larger  scale  it 
still  has  something  domestic  in  its  character.  There 
may  be  twenty  people  under  a  master  as  petty  as  them- 
selves, but  they  still  have  to  contrive  to  work  in  the 
master's  lodgings.  He  finds  room  somehow,  and  as 
they  turn  out  of  his  impoverished  workshop  he  turns  in 
to  go  to  bed.  In  this  medium,  and  in  this  medium 
only,  his  serene  spirit  works  at  its  ease  in  inventions 
for  the  toy  market.  Here  he  elaborates  his  wonderful 
buzzing  bees  and  skipping  monkeys,  his  industrious 
mechanical  mice  that  creep  up  a  string  and  down  a 
string,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  A  popular  toy  is  a  for- 
tune. The  man  who  first  found  out  how  to  make  a 
puppet  walk,  with  his  girl  on  his  arm,  and  his  poodle- 
dog  in  leash,  must  long  since  have  retired  in  affluence. 

67 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

A  thousand  considerations  of  policy  and  prudence  affect 
this  industry.  Pohtical  toys  are  of  no  use  except  for 
the  purely  Parisian  market,  and  the  inventor  strikes 
both  for  that  and  for  the  export  trade.  For  the  latter 
the  non-political  puppet  with  the  poodle  elbows  the 
heroes  out  of  the  field. 

Many  of  the  great  manufacturing  houses  try  to  lodge 
their  own  work-people  in  comfort  and  decency.  At  the 
iron-works  of  Creusot  they  make  endless  efforts  of  this 
sort,  and  are,  on  the  whole,  fairly  successful.  The 
working-class  city  founded  by  Jean  Dolfus  at  Mul- 
house  is  a  wonderful  creation.  The  well-known  Pha- 
lanstere  de  Guise  is  a  sort  of  Republic  of  Plato,  or 
Utopia  of  More,  adapted  to  \\-orking-class  needs.  These 
philosophic  employers  of  labor,  who  have  tried  to  rear 
men  as  others  rear  pheasants,  have  a  good  deal  to 
show  for  their  pains,  in  settlements  in  which  every  one, 
down  to  the  humblest,  is  lodged  in  a  way  that  differen- 
tiates the  human  beinij  from  the  brute.  These  are  the 
industrial  experiments. 

Then  there  are  the  religious  ones.  The  revivalist 
movement  in  the  Catholic  Church  that  began  after  the 
Franco-Prussian  war  is  very  active  in  the  industrial 
domain.  The  church  tried  to  turn  the  moral  of  that 
awful  catastrophe  entirely  to  its  own  profit.  It  has 
just  completed  its  monumental  temple  at  Montmartre, 
visible  from  every  quarter  of  the  city,  and  designed  to 
warn  the  populace  fore\'er  and  forever  of  the  wicked- 
ness of  the  Commune,  and  of  the  need  of  intercessory 
prayers.  In  the  same  way  it  has  started  all  over  the 
country  workmen's  clubs  "to  combat  democracy  and 
infidelity  "  — clubs  which  are  intended  to  procure  work 

68 


COLLECTING   CUSTOMS   AT   THE   BARRIERS 


PARIS    OF    THE    FAUBOURGS 

for  the  faithful  from  the  faithful,  and  which  put  the 
poor  and  pious  tailor  in  the  way  of  mending  the 
breeches  of  the  Catholic  millionaire.  These  have  some 
success,  though  the  artisan,  as  a  rule,  fights  shy  of  them, 
and  regards  their  members  with  the  utmost  scorn. 
They  give  free  social  entertainments,  not  to  say  free 
lunches,  all  on  the  easy  condition  of  a  due  submission 
to  the  powers  that  be,  both  in  church  and  state. 

Connected  w^ith  the  religious  organizations  is  the 
scheme  of  cheap  houses.  There  is  a  great  society  for 
the  building  of  Jiabitations  a  bou  marcJie,  and  it  does 
good  work,  but  still  on  what  seems  to  me  the  unsatis- 
factory basis  of  charity.  Some  of  its  houses  are  built 
on  the  conception  that  a  small  house  and  garden  belong 
to  the  natural  state  of  civilized  man.  This  idea,  of 
course,  can  be  carried  out  only  in  the  country,  where 
space  is  not  so  precious.  At  Auteuil  there  is  a  whole 
street  of  niaisouiicttes  of  this  description,  and  of  three- 
story  houses  in  which  two  or  more  families  may  lodge 
in  comfort  and  decency  on  the  tenement  system.  With 
these,  and  forming  part  of  the  scheme,  is  a  cooperative 
store,  where  the  tenants  get  nearly  all  necessaries  at 
cost  price.  There  are  other  dwellings  of  the  same 
society  at  St. -Denis,  the  great  manufacturing  plain 
beyond  the  walls,  and  in  other  parts  of  France. 

But  the  dwelling-house  is  only  one  of  the  conditions. 
The  workshop  is  another.  In  fact,  where  you  work  is 
perhaps  more  important  than  where  you  lodge,  for 
there  you  spend  the  greater  part  of  your  time  under 
one  roof  A  good  deal  has  been  done  by  legislative 
and  administrative  supervision  to  put  the  workshops  in 
a  healthier  state.     All  this,  however,  is  to  be  judged  by 

7^ 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

the  standard  of  the  country,  and  it  must  be  confessed 
that  in  certain  matters  the  French  standard  is  not  high. 
Workshops  that  would  pass  muster  in  France  as  being 
quite  on  the  improved  jjlan  would  be  considered  by 
other  communities  as  only  less  objectionable  than  a 
Kafir  kraal.  You  are  to  bear  in  mind  that  it  is  an  old 
country,  and  that  it  does  all  things  in  a  more  or  less 
old-fashioned  way.  Its  own  idea  that  it  is  the  newest  of 
the  new  is  merely  its  fun.  The  apprenticeship  laws 
abound  in  all  sorts  of  quaint  provisions.  Boys  and 
girls  are  to  have  one  day's  rest  a  week,  though  the  day 
is  not  fixed.  There  are  strict  regulations  as  to  the 
weight  of  burdens  that  may  be  carried  by  the  appren- 
tice, according  to  sex  and  age. 

Then  there  is  another  sobering  influence  in  the  ques- 
tion of  wages.  The  skilled  workman  in  the  Dejjart- 
ment  of  the  Seine  —  that  is  to  say,  in  Paris  and  its 
neighborhood  —  earns  from  six  to  eight  francs  a  day. 
This  is  only  the  average.  It  means  much  higher 
wages  for  some  in  the  highly  skilled  and  purely  artistic 
trades,  and  much  lower  wages  for  others.  The  same 
kind  of  workmen  earn  from  four  to  five  francs  in  the 
provinces.  This  may  serve  to  mark  the  difference  in 
the  proportion  throughout.  The  lowest-paid  —  the  un- 
skilled in  the  country  —  earn  from  two  to  three  francs  a 
day;  the  same  class,  of  course,  take  relatively  higher 
wages  in  the  capital.  There  is  a  sort  of  middle  term 
of  the  half-skilled  trades,  ranging  in  earnings  between 
the  two.  All  these  rates,  low  as  they  are,  represent  an 
increase  of  a  hundred  per  cent,  in  the  last  fifty  years. 
Of  course  they  have  to  be  considered  strictly  in  relation 
to  their  purchasing  power,  which  is  fairly  high.     If  the 

72 


PARIS    OF    THE    FAUBOURGS 

Frcncli  workman  lived  now  exactly  as  he  lived  half  a 
century  ago,  the  cost  of  living  would  be  only  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  higher  as  against  the  hundred  per  cent,  of 
income.  But  his  claim  in  li\ing  has  naturally  gone 
up.  He  wants  better  things,  so  his  actual  outlay  is 
doubled.  The  net  result,  however,  is  an  enormous  in- 
crease in  well-being.  If  in  one  way  he  receives  more 
only  to  spend  more,  the  more  he  spends  now  gives  him 
comforts  undreamed  of  in  the  philosophy  of  his  grand- 
father. Watch  him  at  his  midday  meal  at  the  brasserie, 
and  you  will  see  that  he  is  fairly  well  provided  with 
food.  He  gets  a  better  dinner — a  dinner  with  more 
meat  in  it,  and  less  onion  and  thin  soup — than  his 
father  had.      It  is  meat,  if  only  meat  of  a  kind. 

The  purchasing  power  of  wages  is  increased  to  the 
utmost  by  the  excellent  system  of  markets.  They  are 
a  wholesome  survi\al  of  the  old  economy  in  which 
there  was  no  middleman.  The  country  folk  brought 
their  wares  into  town,  and  the  townspeople  went  to  buy 
them.  That  system  obtains  almost  in  its  primitive  sim- 
plicitN"  in  the  Paris  of  to-day.  All  over  the  city  there 
are  local  markets  which  are  supplied  directly  by  the 
growers  in  the  suburbs.  Here  you  may  meet  all 
classes — the  workman's  wife  and  the  smart  young 
housekeeper,  followed  by  her  servant,  who  carries  the 
basket.  The  city  dues  have,  of  course,  to  be  reckoned 
in  the  cost.  There  is  the  charge  of  the  octroi  at  the 
gates,  and  there  arc  the  market  charges ;  but,  with  all 
this,  the  buyer  gains  a  good  deal  by  not  having  to  go 
to  a  costly  shop.  The  octroi  is  a  sur\ival  that  prom- 
ises to  be  perpetual.  The  French  people  will  not  en- 
dure direct    taxation.     Thcv  \\\\\    pay    to    any    extent 

73 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

through  the  nose,  but  it  is  hateful  to  them  to  have  to 
put  their  hands  into  their  pockets  and  bring  out  a  sub- 
stantial sum  for  any  public  service.  You  have  to  take 
toll  of  them  in  advance  by  laying  a  charge  on  every- 
thing they  eat,  drink,  or  wear.  It  is  only  the  ha'penny 
or  the  penny  in  the  franc,  which  they  don't  miss.  It  is 
just  the  same  in  their  contributions  to  charity.  They 
are  seldom  capable  of  writing  a  check  in  cold  blood, 
but  they  will  do  anything  in  reason,  or  in  unreason,  to 
see  a  charity  performance,  or  to  buy  a  trinket  at  a  char- 
ity bazaar. 

Most  foreigners  who  study  the  markets  generally 
make  the  mistake  of  going  to  the  great  central  establish- 
ment of  the  Halles.  It  is  wonderful,  of  course,  but  the 
smaller  markets  give  one  a  clearer  insight  into  the  true 
civic  life.  The  Halles  is  the  place  for  the  supply  of  the 
great  shops,  and  the  greater  part  of  its  trade  is  really 
wholesale.  Its  twenty-two  acres,  its  two  or  three  thou- 
sand stalls,  its  twelve  hundred  cellars,  are  on  a  scale 
that  precludes  profitable  observation.  It  is  a  w  ondrous 
scene,  but  so  are  all  great  markets  of  the  kind.  The 
carts  rumble  along  all  the  night  through  from  the 
market-gardens,  with  freights  of  eatables,  alive  or  dead, 
that  give  one  a  positive  horror  of  the  human  appetite. 
It  is  a  still  more  awful  sight  at  the  cattle  market  at  La 
Villette,  with  its  six  thousand  oxen,  its  nine  thousand 
calves  and  pigs,  its  twenty-five  thousand  sheep,  march- 
ing in  every  Monday  and  Thursday  to  fill  the  insatia- 
ble maw  of  Paris.  Most  of  these  are  brought  in  by  the 
river  port  of  La  Villette. 

The  great  wine  market  is  another  extraordinary 
sight,  and  with  its  thousands  of  barrels  ranged  along 

74 


EARLY    MORNING  SCENE   AT  THE   CENTRAL   MARKET 

HALLES    CENTRALES 


PARIS    or     THE    FAUBOURGS 

the  quays  it  reminds  one  of  the  Lilhputian  preparations 
for  a  meal  of  (iuHiver.  Near  this  market  is  a  wonder- 
fully good  restaurant,  almost  wholly  unknown  to  the 
general  diner  in  Paris,  but  exceedingly  well  known  to 
the  prosperous  wine-merchants  who  visit  this  remote 
quarter  to  trade.  There  are  such  restaurants,  good, 
and  little  known  to  the  outsider,  near  most  of  the  great 
markets.  The  Pied  de  Mouton,  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  Halles,  is  a  famous  one,  and  its  cellar  is  one  of 
the  best  in  Paris.  There  is  another  overlooking  the 
neighboring  square  in  which  stands  the  beautiful  foun- 
tain by  Jean  Goujon. 

So  the  French  workman  is  the  creature  of  the 
street  for  the  sense  of  the  joy  of  life,  and  the  crea- 
ture of  the  home  and  the  workshop  for  the  sense  of 
the  hardship,  and  sometimes  of  the  sorrow.  Fash- 
ioned as  he  is  in  this  way,  two  outside  forces  con- 
tend for  the  possession  of  him.  The  question  of 
questions  is,  Will  he  take  his  guidance  from  the  recog- 
nized agencies  within  the  law,  or  from  the  agencies  of 
revolt  ?  The  state,  and  also,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
church,  offer  him  all  sorts  of  bribes  and  bonuses  to  con- 
sent to  work  in  their  way.  They  recognize  his  trade 
and  self-help  societies.  They  try  to  get  him  to  the 
altar  as  a  devotee,  and  to  the  urn  as  a  voter.  But  he 
has  heard  of  Utopias,  and  he  longs  to  have  one  more 
struggle  for  absolute  perfection  at  short  notice,  though 
he  may  have  to  lay  down  his  life  in  the  attempt.  The 
key  to  modern  French  history  is  to  be  found  here. 
Every  political  movement  has  to  be  a  compromise  be- 
tween the  aspirations  of  the  faubourg  and  the  world  as 
it  wags.     The  French  workman  has  been  bred  in  the 

77 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

belief  in  revolution  as  a  recognized  agency  of  progress, 
and  by  instinct  and  habit  he  loathes  second-best.  The 
old  order  offers  him  the  churches,  the  thrift  and  benefit 
societies,  cooperation,  insurance  against  accidents,  edu- 
cation, technical  and  other — the  old  political  economy, 
in  a  word,  and  the  paternal  state.  The  new  whispers 
socialism,  the  Commune,  anarchy  sometimes,  and  with 
these  the  barricade. 

The  societies  of  mutual  help  form  an  enormous  force 
on  the  side  of  the  established  order.  Their  numbers 
are  ccnmted  by  thousands  ;  their  capital  is  over  a  hun- 
dred million  francs.  Some  are  "  municipal,"  and  this 
means 'they  are  helped  by  public  funds.  In  this  in- 
stance they  give  help  in  sickness  only.  The  "  profes- 
sional," those  formed  without  such  help  among  the 
crafts  themselves,  give  aid  to  men  out  of  work,  and 
sometimes  pensions  to  the  aged  and  infirm.  The  state 
"approves"  those  of  the  first  type,  and  only  "author- 
izes" the  others.  The  savinrfs-banks  ha\-e  been  under 
government  patronage  for  the  better  part  of  one  cen- 
tury, or,  to  carry  it  still  further  back  to  the  origin  of  the 
Society  of  Deposits,  for  more  than  three.  The  organi- 
zation of  that  petty  thrift  which  is  the  foundation  of 
national  wealth  dates  from  a  decree  of  Henry  III  issued 
in  1578. 

The  cooperative  movement  in  France  has  two  as- 
pects, and  one  of  them  is  revolutionary.  The  \\ilder 
spirits  are  always  trying  to  capture  cooperation  as  it 
was  captured  in  1848  for  the  national  workshops.  Their 
aim  is  the  forcible  abolition  of  the  middleman — in  one 
word,  of  the  boss.  The  more  thoughtful  are  content  to 
work  out  their  own  sahation  b)-  the  slower  processes 

78 


PARIS    OF     IHE    FAUBOURGS 

of  thrift,  self-denial,  and  self-control.  The  revolution- 
ary line  is  indicated  by  what  was  once  the  great  supe- 
riority of  the  productive  over  the  distributive  societies. 
The  workmen  wanted  to  begin  at  the  beginning,  by 
getting  hold  of  the  workshops.  Everything,  they  said 
to  themselves,  is,  at  first,  a  thing  made,  and  if  they,  and 
they  alone,  could  make  it,  the  question  of  distribution 
would  already  be  half  solved.  The  less  theoretical 
English  workman  was  content  to  take  the  thing  as 
made  —  no  matter  by  what  agency  of  the  lordship  of 
capital  —  and  to  buy  it  at  the  cheapest  rate  for  distribu- 
tion to  the  consumer.  The  French  seem  slowly  com- 
ing round  to  that  view.  At  any  rate,  the  consuming 
societies  are  now  very  far  in  excess  of  the  others.  As 
it  is,  they  have  no  affinity  with  the  English  trading- 
stores,  which  virtually  sell  to  everybody,  and  they  are 
compelled  to  confine  their  operations  strictly  to  the  cir- 
cle of  membership. 

On  the  other  hand,  some  of  the  productive  societies 
are  highly  prosperous,  and  under  the  republican  system 
they  get  a  share  of  the  government  work.  Two  socie- 
ties of  printers  used  to  have  the  contract  for  the  "Jour- 
nal Officiel,"  and,  for  aught  I  know  to  the  contrary, 
have  it  to  this  day.  The  relations  of  all  these  societies 
with  the  state  are  regulated  by  a  special  bureau,  very 
much  to  the  disgust  of  the  "clubs  of  social  studies,"  who 
want  to  be  as  free  as  air.  The  play  of  the  two  oppos- 
ing forces  of  liberty  and  authority  is  incessant  in  this 
as  in  every  other  institution  in  France.  Cooperation 
now  moves  all  along  the  line,  not  only  in  manufactures, 
but  in  agriculture,  for  cheap  houses  and  for  cheap  loans. 
A  newer  type  is  one  in  w  hich  masters  and  workmen 

79 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

combined,  each  contributing  their  capital,  large  or  small, 
and  sharing  benefits,  of  course  in  proportion  to  the 
amount  of  their  subscription.  This,  it  was  hoped, 
would  bring  cooperation  into  the  department  of  "grand 
industry,"  and  proxide  for  the  purchase  of  extensive  and 
costly  plant.  But  it  has  not  had  much  success,  owing 
to  constant  discussion  between  the  workmen  and  the 
syndicate,  and  there  is  now  a  tendency  to  revert  to  the 
earlier  system  of  small  cooperators,  providing  every- 
thing for  themselves. 

The  man  who  has  tried  most  to  make  the  social 
movement  evolutionary,  instead  of  revolutionary,  is  the 
Comte  de  Chambrun.  He  is  the  great  patron  of  the 
cooperative  movement,  and  he  has  given  his  mone)- 
and  his  time  to  it.  In  nights  of  insomnia  great  \\aking 
thoughts  that  were  better  than  visions  came  to  him, 
and  urtjed  him  to  make  himself  useful  to  his  kind.  So 
the  "  Social  Museum  "  of  his  creation  is  now  a  govern- 
ment department,  where  you  may  study  every  branch 
of  the  subject  with  the  aid  of  one  of  the  best  special 
libraries  in  the  world.  His  Temple  of  Humanity  at  the 
It.xposition  —  still  perhaps  a  temple  of  fancy  only — is 
to  have  two  doors.  One  is  to  bear  the  date  of  the 
expiring  century,  and  is  to  be  labeled  "Salary";  the 
other  the  date  of  the  century  to  come,  ^\■ith  the  title 
"Association."  TVance  has  scores  of  men  of  this  sort, 
all  working  to  the  same  end  by  different  means,  some 
of  them  revolutionary.  Edmond  Potonie,  whom  I  used 
to  know,  sacrificed  the  succession  to  a  large  business 
to  liv^e  on  a  fifth  floor  at  the  East  End  and  promote  the 
cause  of  universal  peace.  The  brothers  Reclus  —  one 
of  them  the  great  geographer,  who  was  just  saved  from 

80 


DAUGHTERS   OF  THE    PEOPLE 

LEAVING    A    FACTORY 


PARIS    OF    THE    FAUBOURGS 

the  worst  after  the  Commune  by  a  memorial  widely 
signed  throughout  the  world — were  for  blood  and  fire. 
Yves  Guyot,  journalist,  ex-minister,  and  a  man  of  per- 
fect honor  and  integrity  all  through,  is  a  free-trader  of 
the  old  school.  His  life  has  been  in  a  mild  sort  of  way 
a  martyrdom,  because  he  insists  on  the  perfect  harmony 
of  interests  between  labor  and  capital.  This  is  ever 
the  great  line  of  division  between  the  tw^o  schools.  In 
labor  insurance,  for  instance,  one  school  cries,  "  State 
aid,"  and  the  other,  "  Self-help."  The  state-aid  schools 
stand  for  the  taxation  of  wealth,  the  self-help  schools 
for  frugality.  The  new  law  is  received  with  only  par- 
tial favor  by  the  advanced  party. 

It  is  the  same  in  technical  education.  Nobody  dis- 
putes the  need  of  it,  but  many  think  that  the  old  gild 
schools  were  the  best.  The  municipality,  however,  has 
long  had  possession  of  the  greater  part  of  the  field,  and 
it  does  wonders  in  training  the  poorest  children  in  those 
principles  of  taste  which  come  by  nature,  in  the  first 
place,  to  the  majority  of  Frenchmen.  A  municipal 
crafts-school  is  a  wonderful  sight.  The  pupils  study 
high  art,  in  its  application  to  all  the  superior  industries, 
without  spending  a  penny  for  the  best  teaching  in  the 
world.  They  draw,  model,  and  paint  from  the  best 
examples.  They  are  the  pick  of  the  elementary  schools, 
where  drawing  is  one  of  the  subjects,  though  naturally 
it  is  taught  onl\-  in  its  elements;  but  whenever  special 
aptitude  is  shown,  the  higher  school  seeks  the  parents 
out,  and  takes  counsel  with  them  as  to  the  propriety  of 
giving  the  pupil  a  chance  in  one  of  the  art  trades.  If 
all  goes  well  the  child  is  sent  to  the  school.  If  the 
earlier  promise  is  not  fulfilled,  the  parents  are  again 

83 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

warned  that  they  had  better  think  of  something  else. 
If  it  is  fulfilled,  the  school  does  its  very  best  for  three 
or  four  years.  Then  one  of  the  great  art  houses  in 
bronze  or  marble  or  stone  carving  or  engraving,  or 
some  other  of  the  many  applied  arts,  makes  an  opening 
for  the  new  hand.  Fame  and,  in  a  modest  way,  for- 
tune is  the  next  step.  This,  and  this  alone,  is  the  secret 
of  the  French  supremacy  in  the  precious  metals.  It 
comes  by  no  accident;  it  is  the  result  of  a  careful  selec- 
tion of  the  fittest  at  e\x'ry  stage. 

The  w  ives  and  womankind  generally  of  the  laboring 
class  are  a  great  force  on  the  side  of  the  domestic  \'ir- 
tues.  The  well-brought-up  Frenchwoman  of  whatever 
class  is  order,  method,  thrift,  and  industry  personified. 
If  a  representative  goddess  of  these  virtues  were 
wanted,  there  she  is  ready  to  hand.  W'ithin  her  degree 
she  is,  as  I  have  said,  neat  from  top  to  toe,  well  shod, 
trim  in  her  attire.  W'ithin  the  same  limit  of  opportu- 
nity she  is  notoriously  a  good  cook.  She  will  work 
early  and  late.  Her  children  rise  up  and  call  her 
blessed  as  they  put  on  the  shirts  and  stockings  \\hich 
she  has  mended  overnight.  Strong  drink  is  a  vice 
almost  unknown  to  her  experience  in  so  far  as  it  is  one 
affecting  her  own  sex.  So  far  as  I  know  there  is  no 
analogue  in  France  to  the  British  matron  of  the  w^ork- 
ing-class  who  tipples  at  the  public-house  bar.  It  is  an 
insistent  fancy  of  mine  that  the  Frenchwoman,  both  for 
good  and  ill,  is  the  stronger  of  the  sex  combination  for 
the  whole  race.  Like  the  person  in  the  nursery  rhyme, 
when  she  is  bad  she  is  horrid,  because  of  the  will  and 
the  mental  power  that  she  puts  into  her  aberrations. 
But  \\hen  she  is  good  —  and  she  is  generally  so  (for  in 

84 


PARIS    OF    THE    FAUBOURGS 

all  life,  thank  Heaven  !  the  averages  are  usually  on  the 
right  side) — she  is  a  treasure.  She  keeps  the  poor 
man's  home  straight. 

Her  daughter  grows  up  like  her,  with  the  most  ele- 
mentary notions  as  to  rights  and  pleasures,  with  the 
sternest  notions  as  to  duties.  The  home  is,  of  course, 
the  best  nursery  of  these  virtues,  and  I  could  wish  that 
the  girl  had  never  to  pass  its  bounds  for  the  indiscrimi- 
nate companionship  of  the  factory.  She  has  been  taught 
to  look  for  a  sort  of  maternal  initiative  in  all  things,  and 
she  is  apt  to  feel  like  a  corporal's  file  without  its  cor- 
poral when  she  stands  alone.  She  is  not  so  well  forti- 
fied as  the  English  —  above  all,  as  the  American  —  girl 
by  pride  in  her  self-reliance.  She  is  best  where  she 
best  likes  to  be — at  home.  After  all,  the  best  of  facto- 
ries is  only  the  second-best  of  this  ministrant  sex,  as 
the  best  of  creches,  where  one  day,  I  suppose,  the  cra- 
dles \v\\\  be  rocked  by  steam-power,  is  only  second- 
best  for  her  baby  brother  or  sister.  Both  are  very 
much  better  than  nothing;  no  more  can  be  said.  In 
France,  as  in  England,  the  workman's  ideal  is  to  keep 
the  woman  at  home. 

These  in  their  sum  are  the  great  steadying  influences 
that  correct  the  boulevard  and  the  wine-shop  for  the 
French  working-man.  They  also  correct  the  platforms 
of  the  revolution.  Where  they  are  not  well  developed 
he  is  apt  to  run  a  little  wild.  His  parting  of  the  ways 
points  to  thrift,  toil,  hardship,  on  the  one  hand  ;  on  the 
other,  to  revolution  as  the  promised  short  cut  to  the 
temple  of  happiness.  In  one  section,  and  a  large  one, 
the  faubourg  is  invincibly  revolutionary,  and  as  much 
given  to  the  formula  and  the  nostrum  of  curative  regen- 

85 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

cration  as  an\-  inalade  iniaginnirc.  Sometimes  the 
workman  thinks  that  if  you  can  simply  overturn  the 
existing  order  and  set  forth  Hberty,  equahty,  and  fra- 
ternity by  decree,  you  will  at  once  change  the  face  of 
the  world.  Disappointed  in  that,  and  disappointed,  if 
he  could  only  see  it,  by  the  play  of  his  o\\n  passions 
and  appetites  as  much  as  by  aught  else,  he  turns  with 
hope  and  longing  to  equally  fantastic  schemes.  He 
perished  in  his  thousands  after  the  w^ar  to  make  Paris 
one  of  thirty-six  thousand  communes  of  PVance,  sov- 
ereign within  its  own  borders,  and  uniting  with  the 
others  for  any  and  every  purpose  of  law,  government, 
and  commerce  only  at  its  sovereign  pleasure.  The  lit- 
erature of  these  movements  is  based  on  the  Genevese 
dreamer's  concept  of  man  as  naturally  good,  and  want- 
ing only  a  single  bath  of  light  to  reveal  him  in  his  na- 
tive purity.  That  is  why  the  faubourg  so  contentedly 
dies — just  to  provide  the  bath  for  the  human  race. 

The  well-known  institution  of  the  Bourse  du  Travail 
is  an  instructive  case.  In  its  origin  it  was  a  sort  of 
labor  exchange,  founded  at  the  public  expense  to  bring 
employers  and  workmen  together  in  their  relations  of 
demand  and  supply,  and  to  enable  the  latter  to  study 
all  the  economic  problems  affecting  the  welfare  of  their 
order.  With  this  it  was  a  teaching  institution  officered 
by  some  of  the  best  specialists  in  Paris ;  but  its  work- 
ing-class members,  being  of  those  who  think  that  all 
roads  lead  to  socialism,  soon  proposed  that  as  the  end 
of  the  journey,  and  the  government  took  the  alarm. 
The  institution  was  closed ;  but  the  influence  of  the 
essentially  democratic  constituency  of  the  municipal 
council  was   strong  enough  to  have  it   reopened,  and 

86 


PARIS    OF    THE    FAUBOURGS 

there  it  is  to-day,  in  tiie  Rue  du  Chateau  d'Eau,  more 
flourishinij  than  c\er. 

It  has  a  workmanhke  look.  You  are  received  by- 
men  in  blouses  at  the  door;  you  find  men  in  blouses 
in  many  of  the  offices  ;  and  you  may  haply  discover  a 


A    FUNERAL   OF   THE    EIGHTH   CLASS 


meeting  of  men  on  strike  in  the  great  hall.  They  come 
there  when  they  are  out  of  work,  either  by  their  own 
volition,  or  by  the  chances  of  the  market.  In  the  latter 
case  they  expect  the  Bourse  to  let  them  know  of  all 
the  work  that  is  going.  In  the  former  thev  discuss 
their  grievances,  and  choose  deputations   to  lay  them 

87 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

before  the  employers.  They  have  their  own  organs, 
monthl)  ;uh1  annual,  and  other  organs  which,  perhaps, 
speak  more  effectually  in  their  name  because  they  have 
no  official  sanction.  The  trend  toward  extreme  doc- 
trine is  seen  in  their  "  Ouvrier  des  Deux  Mondes,"  a 
monthly  review.  (3ne  of  the  numbers  of  this  publica- 
tion celebrates  the  International  and  condemns  the 
"atrocious  suppression"  of  the  Commune.  Another 
declares  that  the  policy  of  the  revolutionary  party  is  to 
get  all  it  can  while  waiting  for  "  the  coming  revolution." 
"  Not  that  we  ought  to  ask  anything  of  capital,"  pur- 
sues the  writer,  "  though  we  should  take  something  at 
once."  And  in  the  official  "  Annual  "  I  find  an  account 
of  a  little  festival  on  which  one  of  the  guests  toasted 
the  Commune,  and  boasted  that  the  organization  of  the 
Bourse  du  Travail  was  a  benefit  "snatched  from  the 
egotism  of  the  bourgeoisie."  This,  in  fact,  is  the  domi- 
nant note.  It  means  that  capital  and  labor  in  France 
are  still  as  wide  apart  as  the  poles,  and  that  the  vast 
majority  of  the  poor  of  Paris  still  take  their  "  funeral  of 
the  eighth  class"  as  much  under  protest  as  ever. 


88 


A   BIRD'S-RYH   VIEW   OF  THE 
EXPOSITION   GROUNDS 


FASHIONABLE    PARIS 


IN  October  and  November  fashionable  persons  pour 
into  Paris  for  the  season.  From  this  time  forward, 
for  about  six  months,  town  will  be  their  head- 
quarters. Sometimes  they  make  short  winter  trips  to 
the  southern  watering-places,  but  they  are  still  more  or 
less  in  touch  with  the  capital.  The  immigrant  swarm 
includes  all  sorts  of  outlandish  figures,  pleasure-seekers 
of  the  world  at  large.  These  do  not  visit  the  shrines 
w'ith  quite  the  same  devotion  as  of  old.  Still,  to  any 
one  on  this  continent  whose  pursuit  is  "  a  good  time," 
Paris  is  always,  more  or  less,  a  matter  of  course.  It 
can  never  be  left  wholly  out  of  the  reckoning. 

Our  older  European  societies  make  leisure  a  very 
serious  vocation.  They  are  deliberately  trained  for  it, 
and  they  chase  the  butterfly  w  ith  more  conviction  than 
the  younger  communities  of  the  world.  For  instance, 
in  a  general  sense,  the  dandy  in  x'\merica,  while  on  his 
way  to  more  generous  recognition,  is  still  onl)'  the 
transient  and  embarrassed  phantom  of  Disraelian 
phrase.  The  urgent  crowd  yet  mocks  at  him  and  his 
like,  and  he  has  no  regular  course  of  frivolity  that  keeps 

93 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

him  hard  at  it,  in  a  stately  progress  from  trifle  to  trifle, 
for  the  rev^olving  year.  In  France  the  science  of  not 
earning  your  own  li\'ing  is  carried  to  high  perfection. 
So  it  is  in  England,  though  in  a  more  serious  way, 
thanks  to  the  larger  resource  of  public  life.  In  both 
you  see  the  same  thing  in  different  forms  —  the  neces- 
sity of  making  pleasure  an  organized  energy. 

Years  ago,  when  there  was  a  temporary  lull  in  the 
performances  at  the  Salle  Ventadour,  the  society  papers 
were  much  exercised  as  to  what  should  be  done  to  fill 
the  blank.  There  was  a  Tuesday  night  left  unoccupied. 
The  necessary  man,  however,  came  at  the  right  mo- 
ment in  the  shape  of  a  viscount,  who  imagined  a  Tues- 
day at  the  Theatre  Fran^ais.  It  was  "created,"  and 
with  the  greatest  care.  Society  subscribed.  The  "  Fi- 
garo "  published  a  plan  of  the  house,  showing  exactly 
where  the  Rothschilds,  the  Pourtales,  the  Sagans,  and 
other  shining  lights  might  l)e  discerned  with  the  naked 
eye.  The  contriver  was  considered  to  have  deserved 
well  of  his  country. 

Theoretically,  there  is  now  no  season  in  Paris,  just 
as,  theoretically,  there  are  no  fashions.  This  means 
that  one  section  of  society  is  still  sulking  with  the 
Republic.  The  idea  is  that  it  will  be  inconsolable  until 
the  King  comes  back,  and  that  it  disdains  all  those 
mundane  vanities  in  which  it  has  no  better  leader  than 
a  President  and  his  wife.  I  remember  once  seeking 
out  M.  Worth,  now  long  since  gone  to  his  account,  to 
inquire  of  him,  in  a  spirit  of  philosophic  investigation, 
how  the  fashions  were  started.  I  had  imagined  that  it 
would  be  interesting  to  discover  the  very  fount  of  in- 
spiration in  these  matters,  to  find  out  exactly  how  a  new 

94 


FIVE   O'CLOCK   IN   A   PRIVATE   HOUSE    OF  THE 
FAUBOURG   ST. -GERMAIN 


FASHIONABLK    PARIS 

skirt  or  a  new  bodice  was  revealed  to  the  race.  He 
satisfied  my  curiosity  in  the  most  obliging  manner, 
though,  at  the  outset,  he  assured  me  that,  under  the 
Republic,  the  fashions  were  not  started  at  all.  They 
simply  occurred,  in  a  more  or  less  fugitive  fashion, 
because  there  was  no  one  to  set  the  needful  example. 

In  the  old  days,  he  said,  it  was  simple  enough.  He 
hit  upon  an  idea,  and  submitted  it  to  two  or  three  ladies 
of  taste  in  the  court  of  the  Empress.  They  liked  it,  or 
did  not  like  it,  and  taking  counsel  with  him,  they  finally 
shaped  it  into  something  which  they  might  feel  justi- 
fied in  laying  before  the  throne.  It  was  then  further 
modified  on  its  way  to  perfection.  At  length  came  the 
great  day,  say  the  opening  of  the  spring  races,  when 
one  or  two  of  them  imposed  it  on  the  mass  of  woman- 
kind as  a  sort  of  edict  from  above.  With  that  it  started 
on  its  travels  round  the  world. 

But,  virtually,  of  course,  life  has  to  be  lived,  just  as 
women  have  to  be  dressed,  and  so,  no  matter  what  the 
regime,  things  get  themselves  done  after  a  fashion. 
The  science  of  sulking  with  the  Republic  has  to  own 
certain  limitations.  Rich  and  idle  people  must  amuse 
themselves,  and  if  they  cannot  get  the  social  leadership 
they  want,  they  have  to  invent  some  working  substi- 
tute. As  a  class,  the  French  aristocracy  have  no  par- 
ticipation in  public  affairs.  They  go  into  political  life 
in  the  unit,  not  in  the  mass,  and  on  the  same  principle 
of  equality  as  the  notary  of  a  country  town  who  works 
his  way  into  the  Chamber  or  into  office.  So,  many  of 
them  fall  back  on  pleasures  of  the  more  frivolous  kind, 
but  for  these  all  who  seek  to  enjoy  them,  high  and  low- 
alike,  train  with  exquisite  care.     It  is  mainly  a  training 

97 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

for  moderation.  They  know  that  excess  is  a  mistake. 
The  object  is  the  luxury  of  agreeable  sensation,  and 
this  precludes  riot. 

There  is  nothing  more  wonderful  in  nature,  or  rather 


CHILDREN    OF    THE    RICH 


in  art,  than  a  French  man  or  woman  who  has  suc- 
ceeded in  perfectly  realizing  this  racial  ideal.  The  man 
especially  eats  and  drinks  well,  but  only  by  virtue  of 
the  most  rigorous  self-control.  His  dishes  are  ar- 
ranged in  a  certain  succession  of  flavors  that  help  one 

98 


FASHIONABLE    PARIS 

another.  His  drinks  arc  sipped  in  a  scale  of  stimula- 
tion rising  from  grave  to  gay.  I  have  known  little 
partnerships  for  this  purpose,  in  which  men  dining  out 
at  a  strange  place  have  agreed  that  one  shall  serve  as 
taster  for  the  two,  on  the  principle  that  if  indigestion  is 
to  be  the  penalty,  there  shall  still  be  a  survivor.  As 
the  different  dishes  are  served,  the  taster  smiles  or 
shakes  his  head,  and  the  other  instantly  partakes  or 
refrains.  It  marks  their  sense  of  reverence  for  the 
temple  of  the  body,  and  so  brings  them  as  near  to 
religion  as  some  are  likely  to  get. 

This  training  for  trifles  begins  at  birth  with  the  infant 
of  fashion.  It  is  very  much  the  business  of  his  nurse  to 
see  that  light  and  air  do  not  visit  him  too  roughly.  His 
swaddling-clothes  are  a  marvel  of  completeness  as  non- 
conductors of  the  winds  of  heaven.  As  soon  as  he  is 
old  enough  to  understand  things,  you  see  him  toddling 
out  with  his  tutor,  a  grave  ecclesiastic,  who  watches 
over  him  at  work  and  play,  and  puts  the  right  notions 
into  his  mind.  The  ties  thus  formed  are  never  wholly 
severed.  The  priest  attends  to  all  the  goings  out  and 
the  comings  in.  When  ball  is  the  game,  he  is  there  to 
see  that  his  charge  does  not  hurt  himself,  nor  hurt  the 
ball.  He  makes  the  lad  gravely  polite,  and  grounds 
him  in  the  secondary  religion  of  the  salute,  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  no  game  of  shuttlecock  without  a  bow  to  your 
partner.  He  also,  of  course,  grounds  him  in  the 
humanities.  At  this  early  age  the  child  is  not  sent  to 
school.  He  is  coached  at  home  by  the  priest,  and 
taken  once  or  twice  a  week  to  what  is  called  a  coiir,  an 
establishment  where  private  teaching  is  tested  by  public 
examinations.     The  cour  directs  the  studies,  and  deter- 

99 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

mines  proficiency  in  them  by  question  and  answer. 
Tutor  and  pupil  prepare  as  best  they  can  in  the 
interval. 

The  essence  of  the  system  is  the  exclusion  of  every- 
thing from  the  boy's  mind  that  ought  not  to  be  there. 
So  he  is  under  the  strictest  supervision  from  first  to 
last.  The  priest  takes  him  to  the  cour  and  fetches  him 
away  again.  When  he  goes  to  the  lycce,  or  public 
school,  it  is  much  the  same.  The  valet  takes  the  place 
of  the  priest,  and  fetches  and  carries,  with  due  provision 
of  muffler  and  umbrella  for  rainy  days.  So  it  goes  on 
until  the  time  of  the  great  change,  when,  perhaps,  the 
youngster  is  sent  to  Saumur,  the  great  cavalry  school. 
Then,  for  the  first  time,  he  has  to  stand  alone,  and 
father,  mother,  nurse,  valet,  and  priest  have  to  say 
good-by.  It  is  always  an  anxious  moment — espe- 
cially so  for  the  neophyte. 

The  bound  from  tutelage  to  the  very  license  of 
liberty,  moral  and  intellectual,  is  a  marked  character- 
istic of  the  French  system.  Marriage  makes  the  trem- 
bling ninny  of  a  girl  a  finished  woman  of  the  world.  A 
first  shave  converts  the  gawky  school-boy  into  the  ape 
of  a  boulevardier,  vices  and  all.  The  transformation  is 
as  sudden  as  anything  in  Eastern  magic.  He  was  a 
boy  after  his  time  under  the  tutelage  system.  He 
becomes  a  man  before  his  time  at  Saumur,  and  he 
generally  goes  through  a  stage  of  puppyism  which  is  a 
trial  for  his  friends.  This  is  the  period  of  his  first  duel, 
a  thing  done  on  the  sly,  and  revealed  to  his  horrified 
mother  only  after  the  scratch  has  healed.  By  and  by 
there  may  be  other  escapades  of  a  more  serious  nature. 
But  the  mother  is  still  there  to  find  out  all  about  them 

lOO 


THE  CHARITY   BAZAAR 


FASHIONABLE    PARIS 

almost  before  they  happen,  and  the  watchful  father  is  at 
hand  to  see  that  they  entail  a  minimum  of  scandal. 

At  this  stage  his  people  begin  to  think  of  marrying 
him,  and  here  again  all  is  provided  for  by  the  ever- 
watchful  system.  It  is  the  mother's  business  to  learn 
the  whereabouts  of  ingenues  doubly  dowered  with 
virtue  and  with  millions.  The  marriage  is  arranged, — 
the  term  has  a  more  than  usually  deep  significance  in 
France, — and  the  pair  have  a  chance  of  living  happily 
ever  after,  if  they  know  how  to  make  the  best  of  it.  It 
is  no  bad  chance.  Though  the  French  marriage  is  not, 
in  the  first  instance,  based  on  love,  it  is  supposed  never 
to  take  place  until  liking,  at  least,  is  assured.  The  rest 
is  expected  to  come  as  a  matter  of  growth.  The  theory 
is  that  any  two  persons  of  about  equal  age,  circum- 
stances, and  breeding,  if  only  they  start  fair  in  friend- 
ship, will  learn  to  love  each  other  by  the  mere  accident 
of  companionship  and  the  identity  of  interests.  The 
odd  thing  is  that  they  very  often  do. 

The  wife  has  been  still  more  carefully  brought  up,  in 
her  way.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  more  than  Hindu 
sanctity  of  know-nothingism  in  which  the  mind  of  the 
young  French  girl  is  shrouded  from  birth.  At  the 
convent  she  has  had  the  wall  between  her  and  a  wicked 
world.  Her  whole  art  of  polite  conversation  with  a 
man  is  little  more  than  "Oui,  monsieur,"  "Non,  mon- 
sieur." After  a  dance  she  must  be  safely  and  swiftly 
deposited — a  sort  of  returned  empty — by  her  mother's 
side,  and  during  that  brief  flutter  of  freedom  it  is  not 
good  form  to  take  advantage  of  the  absence  of  the 
parent  bird.  A  few  observations  on  the  weather  and 
the  picture-galleries  are  considered  to  mark  the  limit 


PARIS    OF     lO-DAY 

of  taste.  "  Gyp  "  has  assured  us  in  many  a  cynic  page 
that  the  ingenue  is  not  half  such  a  simpleton  as  she 
looks.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  "  Gyp  "  has 
largely  invented  a  type  for  her  own  business  uses.  The 
real  article,  while  it  is  not  exactly  a  lamb  in  innocence, 
is  still  happily  unaware  of  most  of  the  evil  going  on  in 
the  world.  Here,  as  military  life  was  the  great  change 
for  the  boy,  marriage  is  the  greater  change  for  the  girl. 
She  passes  at  once  into  a  sphere  in  which  she  is  con- 
sidered fair  game  for  any  allusion  to  anything  within 
the  bounds  of  good  breeding.  She  rises  to  her  oppor- 
tunity, or  to  the  stern  duties  of  her  station,  whichever 
way  you  choose  to  put  it,  and  in  a  surprisingly  short 
time  comes  out  as  the  finished  woman  of  the  world. 
This  is  the  French  way.  I  neither  blame  it  nor  defend 
it;  I  do  not  even  try  to  account  for  it.  I  simply  say 
what  it  is. 

In  this  new  state  of  development  you  will  probably 
find  the  young  wife  at  the  head  of  a  salon.  Her  voca- 
tion in  this  respect  will  be  determined  by  her  rank,  her 
wealth,  or  her  talents ;  but  with  or  without  them,  if  she 
holds  any  position,  she  will  aspire  to  this  kind  of  social 
leadership.  It  is  difficult  to  define  the  French  salon  in 
a  phrase.  It  is  by  no  means  a  mere  drawing-room 
filled  with  company.  It  is  something  distinctly  organ- 
ized with  a  purpose  of  leadership.  The  hostess  tries  to 
make  her  house  a  center  of  influence.  But  why  go  on? 
At  Washington  you  have  the  thing  itself  in  fair  perfec- 
tion of  development.  People  come  and  go;  they  bring 
the  news,  they  hear  the  news,  and  they  work  out  their 
little  schemes.  The  main  art  of  the  salon  is,  of  course, 
conversation.     As  men  at  the  bar  talk  to  live,  people  in 

104 


FASHIONABLE     PARIS 

the  salon  live  to  talk.  With  this  they  have  to  cultivate 
the  social  graces.  They  learn  to  listen  well,  to  keep 
their  tempers,  to  amuse — in  a  word,  to  make  life  pass 
smoothly  for  themselves  and  for  others.  The  salon  is 
really  a  great  school  of  manners,  and  it  is  part  of  that 
art  of  painless  pleasure  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is 
widely  cultivated  in  France.  If  the  wife  belongs  to  the 
aristocracy  her  salon  will  be  of  the  grand  nioiide.  If 
she  only  wants  to  belong  to  it,  her  salon  will  probably 
be  political.  If  she  shines  by  taste  or  talent  it  will  be 
literary  or  musical.  There  are  salons  for  everything, 
even  for  settling  elections  to  the  Academy.  If  you 
attend  them  you  are  expected  to  be  amusing  as  well  as 
to  be  amused. 

Salons  have  their  fortunes,  like  little  books.  They 
go  up  and  down,  according  to  the  circumstances  of  the 
time,  and  sometimes  the  literary  salon  is  most  in  vogue, 
and  sometimes  the  political.  The  old-fashioned  Legiti- 
mist salon  has  had  all  sorts  of  fortunes.  It  ^^'as  in 
great  force  when  Louis  XVIII  was  brought  back  by 
the  allies  after  Waterloo.  Then  the  scheme  was  to 
undo  the  work  of  the  Revolution,  and  the  women  of  the 
Restoration,  with  their  priests  at  their  back,  set  about  it 
with  a  will.  They  organized  the  "  White  Terror,"  a 
sort  of  counterpoise  to  the  "  Red,"  which  had  just 
passed  away,  and  they  gave  the  whole  Liberal  school 
of  thought  an  exceedingly  lively  time. 

There  was  some  attempt  to  revive  the  Legitimist 
salon  when  Marshal  MacMahon  had  his  brief  innings. 
The  Duchcsse  de  Chevreuse  held  gloomy  state,  and 
people  prophesied  the  coming  catastrophe  of  the  Re- 
public over  afternoon  tea.      But  the  duchess  was  only 

105 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

less  belated  than  her  old  master,  the  Comte  de  Cham- 
bord,  and  it  was  felt  that  if  Legitimism  was  to  get  the 
whip-hand  of  France  it  must  still  condescend  a  little  to 
notice  the  time  of  day.  So  the  most  typical  salon  of 
this  period  was  the  one  managed  by  the  Uuchesse  de 
la  Rochefoucauld-Bisaccia.  It  was  the  requisite  blend 
of  old  and  new.  She  was  active,  much  in  e\idence,  a 
great  patron  of  charities  —  in  short,  a  person  with  a 
finger  in  every  pie,  and  all  to  the  end  of  the  restoration 
of  throne  and  altar.  But  she  failed  for  want  of  a  good 
partner.  The  duke  was  an  amiable  nullity  in  affairs. 
He  could  drive  a  four-in-hand ;  he  was  an  authority 
on  the  laws  of  sport,  a  noisy  politician,  but  no  more. 
They  tried  to  make  a  diplomatist  of  him  by  the  simple 
process  of  sending  him  as  ambassador  to  the  court  of 
St.  James,  but  he  was  soon  recalled. 

The  salons  of  finance  lent  a  hand  in  this  pious  work 
Mme.  Bischoffsheim  spent  money  like  water  to  keep  the 
cause  in  heart.  So  did  the  Duchesse  d'Uzes  —  a  Clic- 
quot in  her  origin.  The  development  of  her  salon,  the 
way  in  which  it  rose  from  small  ambitions  to  greater 
ones,  was  peculiar.  It  began  merely  as  the  best  match- 
making salon  in  the  Faubourg  St.-Germain  ;  it  ended 
as  the  best  salon  of  political  intrigue.  Long  after  the 
1 6th  of  May  had  been  swept  into  limbo,  the  influence  of 
the  duchess  survived  in  her  championship  of  the  Bou- 
langist  movement.  She  rallied  to  the  Comte  de  Paris, 
as  she  had  been  ready  to  rally  to  his  cousin,  and  she  is 
said  to  have  put  up  no  small  part  of  the  money  for  that 
gigantic  trust  of  sedition  which  was  to  be  managed  by 
the  man  on  the  black  horse. 

In  this  way  we  see  how  easily  the  social  salon  passes 

1 06 


FASHIONABLE    PARIS 

into  the  political.  In  fact,  the  dividing-lines  as  I  haxe 
given  them  are  only  for  purposes  of  classification. 
There  are  few  drawing-rooms  where  they  stick  solely 
to  one  thing.  The  more  or  less  purely  political  salons 
exhibit  an  agreeable  diversity.  They  are  of  all  shades, 
and  of  course  they  are  especially  Republican.  At  pres- 
ent, however,  the  salons  of  this  variety  are  in  a  state 
which  the  grammarians  define  as  "being  about  to  be." 
They  have  been,  and  they  are  to  be  again.  But  they 
are  still  waiting  for  such  leadership  as  they  had  under 
Mme.  Adam,  Mme.  Floquet,  and  Mme.  Lockroy.  Mme. 
Lockroy,  indeed,  survives  as  a  ruler.  She  is  the  wife 
of  the  pushing  politician,  late  minister  of  marine,  who 
has  more  than  once  occupied  that  position,  and  she  was 
the  daughter-in-law  of  Victor  Hugo.  She  is  charming 
and  sociable,  and  is  altogether  a  person  that  no  rising 
Republican  politician,  with  convictions  and  an  enlight- 
ened sense  of  self-interest,  can  afford  to  neglect. 

Still,  she  is  not  what  Mme.  Adam  was.  That  lady 
still  holds  receptions,  but  she,  too,  is  only  an  object  of 
comparison  beside  her  former  self  Her  great  day  was 
at  the  time  of  that  \'ery  i6th  of  May  when  she  held 
aloft  the  banner  of  the  Republic,  as  the  duchesses  held 
the  banner  of  the  reaction.  Her  house  was  a  kind  of 
citadel,  amply  provisioned  with  tea  and  cake,  where  the 
struggling  Radicals,  with  Gambetta  at  their  head,  held 
the  councils  that  saved  their  cause.  The  hostess  had 
an  almost  ideal  equipment  of  gifts  for  this  part  —  beauty, 
widowhood  (which  meant  freedom),  and  the  inheritance 
of  a  wealthy  Republican  senator.  Then  she  touched 
life  at  other  points,  as  a  busy,  if  not  a  great,  writer  in 
romance,  as  in  politics,  and  as  a  champion  of  woman's 

107 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 


rights.  Add  to  this,  as  might  be  expected,  a  boundless 
self-confidence.  Her  failings  were  those  that  leaned  to 
the   side  of  this  virtue.     She   grew  too   pushing,  too 


CLUB   DES   PANNES    (CLUB   OF   THE    "  HARD-LIP ")    WATCHING 
THE    PARADE    OF    FASHION 

energetic,  and  became  one  of  that  imperious  band  who 
rule  our  spirits  from  their  urns  —  in  this  case,  the  urn 
for  tea.  She  was  for  giving  laws  to  the  lawmakers  of 
the  Republic,  and  settling  the  rise  and  fall  of  ministries 

1 08 


FASHIONABLK    PARIS 

from  her  boudoir.  When  that  ambition  was  fairly  de- 
veloped the  Republican  chiefs  had  to  part  company 
with  her.  But,  before  the  change,  she  exercised  a  wide 
influence.  She  virtually  gave  away  places.  Her  salon 
used  to  be  thronged  with  all  sorts  of  people  who  had 
their  way  to  make  in  the  w^orld.  Men  who  wanted  a 
prefecture  paid  assiduous  court.  Dramatists  who  had 
hopes  of  production  at  the  Frangais,  a  state  matter  in 
its  further  reaches,  elbowed  them  on  the  stairs.  It  was 
a  busy  and  a  brilliant  scene.  It  lost  its  essential  glories 
when  Gambetta  and  his  associates  no  longer  appeared, 
to  keep  their  hostess  in  countenance  in  her  promises  of 
political  favor.  With  them,  naturally,  \\ent  the  place- 
hunters.  Still,  she  struggled  on,  and  kept  up  the  fight 
by  founding  the  "  Nouvelle  Revue,"  and  making  her- 
self exceedingly  disagreeable  at  times  as  the  candid 
friend  of  the  party  in  power. 

She  is  visited  and  honored  yet,  if  only  as  a  memory, 
but,  from  ill  health  and  the  other  causes,  she  is  no  longer 
what  she  was.  She  reached  her  height  of  influence 
when  the  obsequious  municipality  of  Paris  named  a 
street  after  her  pseudonym  of  "Juliette  Lamber."  Her 
decline  was  marked  by  a  proposal  in  the  same  assem- 
bly to  take  her  street  away  from  her  and  give  it  to 
some  new  Egeria.  For  all  that  she  holds  it  to  this 
day.  Poor  General  L'hrich  at  Strasburg  went  up  and 
down  in  thoroughfares  in  this  manner  during  the  war. 
In  the  earlier  stages  of  the  siege  he  w^as  rapidly  pro- 
moted from  streets  to  boulevards  and  squares ;  but  as 
the  Germans  tightened  their  grip  on  the  city,  and  the 
reports  grew  less  favorable,  he  lost  all. 

Another  and  an   interesting  variety  of  the  political 

109 


PARIS    Ol-      iO-DAY 

salon  is  the  salon  of  the  lady  spy.  This  is  exceedingly 
well  appointed,  and  is  altogether  a  curiosity  of  its  kind. 
You  are  cordially  \\  elcomed  if  you  have  any  informa- 
tion to  impart.  You  gi\e  it  as  to  an  intelligent  woman 
of  position  who  happens  to  be  keenly  interested  in  pub- 
lic aftairs,  and  whose  little  dinners  are  a  refreshment  of 
all  the  senses.  If  you  are  a  foreign  attache  you  are 
expected  to  turn  a  side-light  on  the  international  in- 
trigue of  the  moment;  if  a  rising  politician,  you  show 
the  inwardness  of  a  forthcoming  debate  ;  if  a  journalist, 
you  give  and  you  receive  from  all  the  four  winds  of 
the  spirit  as  they  blow.  It  goes  on  quite  merrily  for  a 
time,  until  the  hostess  suddenly  disappears  under  the 
imputation  that  she  was  in  the  pay  of  a  foreign  power, 
or  perhaps  of  the  Prefecture  of  Police. 

The  literary  salon  was  in  its  perfection  when  M.  Caro 
was  the  favorite  lecturer  at  the  Sorbonne.  There  is 
generally  a  fashionable  professor  in  Paris,  as  there  is  a 
fashionable  preacher.  The  smartest  women  attend  his 
lectures,  and  take  copious  notes  on  points  of  meta- 
physics or  theology.  The  strength  of  Caro's  position 
was  that  they  actually  read  the  notes  when  they  got 
home.  He  came  to  strengthen  that  reaction  in  favor  of 
the  Catholic  faith  which  was  one  effect  of  the  war. 
People  were  so  humbled  by  the  national  disasters  that 
their  thoughts  were  easily  turned  to  religion.  So  there 
began  a  movement  against  skepticism,  and  Caro  led  it 
at  the  Sorbonne.  He  lectured,  with  exceeding  grace 
and  charm,  to  prove  that  there  was  no  necessary  divorce 
between  philosophy  and  faith.  The  fine  ladies  were 
edified  and  delighted.  They  formed  rival  salons  in 
honor  of  him,  both  known  as  the   "  Carolines,"  after  his 

I  lO 


THE    PADDOCK    AT  THE   AUTEUIL   RACE-COURSE, 
BOIS   DE    BOULOGNE 


FASHIONABLE    PARIS 

name — one  set  as  the  "  Carolines  "  of  the  north  of 
Paris,  and  the  other  as  the  "  CaroHnes  "  of  the  south. 
This  went  on  until  Pailleron  put  him  and  his  wor- 
shipers on  the  stage  in  a  famous  comedy,  "  Le  monde 
oil  Ton  s'ennuie."  It  was  meant  to  crush  Caro,  but  it 
did  nothing  of  the  sort.  Ridicule  gave  him  the  benefit 
of  an  advertisement.  He  met  the  attack  by  taking  a 
box  in  the  theater  and  watching  the  whole  performance, 
sometimes  applauding  his  own  counterfeit  on  the  stage. 
He  died  as  he  had  lived,  successful,  and  deservedly  so, 
for  he  was  a  man  of  erudition,  and  of  great  refinement 
of  manner  and  of  literary  style.  The  interest  of  his 
personality  in  this  connection  is  that  it  shows  how 
society,  when  it  is  in  the  mood,  knows  how  to  get  en- 
tertainment out  of  everything.  Here  \\'as  a  lecturer  at 
the  Sorbonne  who  gave  Paris  not  only  two  literary 
salons,  but  even  a  new  play. 

The  French  club  takes  its  character  from  the  French 
salon.  It  has  to  be  amusing  or  die.  The  French  have 
a  highly  developed  club  life,  only  it  is  necessarily  a 
club  life  of  their  own.  They  take  less  joy  than  the 
English,  from  whom  they  are  supposed  to  derive  the 
institution,  in  those  negative  clubs  in  which  you  simply 
dine  and  read  your  paper.  They  expect  the  club  to  do 
a  good  deal  for  them.  It  is  to  have  an  active  function, 
and  is  to  be  much  more  than  a  mere  place  of  meeting. 
So  the  really  typical  club  of  Paris  is  the  one  formerly 
known  as  the  Mirlitons,  now  fused  with  another,  but 
still  carrying  its  principles  into  the  partnership.  The 
Mirlitons  is  a  club  of  the  united  arts.  It  is  for  painters, 
men  of  letters,  and  the  like.  They  are  not  left  to  their 
own  devices.     The  committee  organize  all  sorts  of  en- 

113 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

tertainments.  They  hold  choice  concerts  in  the  season, 
at  which  some  of  the  best  amateurs  in  Paris  are  to  be 
heard.  At  another  time  it  is  a  picture  exhibition,  to 
which,  as  to  the  concerts,  members  may  invite  their 
friends.  Now  and  then  you  have  an  amateur  dramatic 
performance,  or  a  great  assault  of  arms,  which  brings 
together,  as  deadly  opposites,  some  of  the  most  noted 
swordsmen  in  Paris. 

Another  variety  of  appeal  to  tliis  universal  desire  for 
something  to  do  is  the  dining  club.  Many  Frenchmen 
who  do  not  need  an  all-the-year-round  club  are  still 
glad  to  meet  their  friends  at  intervals  of  the  week,  fort- 
night, or  month.  The  clubs  for  this  purpose  are  legion, 
and  they  need  a  new  directory  for  every  year,  for  they 
come  and  go.  They  unite  men  with  the  same  pursuits 
or  the  same  tastes.  They  are  of  all  sorts.  There  is  a 
dining  club  of  men  of  letters.  There  are  clubs  (or 
there  used  to  be)  for  the  subdivisions  of  schools,  for  the 
Parnassians  and  for  the  Plastics,  as  there  was  a  Boiled 
Beef  Club,  for  the  naturalists,  under  Zola.  Add  to 
these  a  club  for  failures  in  literature,  a  club  for  men 
whose  plays  have  been  hissed  off  the  stage,  a  club  for 
blockheads,  clubs  for  painters,  etchers,  and  so  on.  Then 
there  are  the  clubs  of  provincials — the  Club  of  the 
Apple,  which  brings  the  Normans  together,  as  men 
from  the  cider  country ;  the  Club  of  the  Cigale,  which 
unites  the  poets  of  Provence;  the  Celtic  Club,  at  which 
Renan  used  often  to  preside.  This  is  one  of  the 
simplest  modes  of  reunion.  It  entails  no  cost  for 
premises,  and  but  little  for  management.  The  mem- 
bers meet  at  a  restaurant,  and  as  they  do  not  have  too 
much  of  one  another,  they  are  usually  at  their  best. 

114. 


FASHIONABLK     I'ARIS 

The  same  craving  for  something  to  give  a  pulse  to 
life  may  largely  account  for  the  number  of  gambling 
clubs  in  Paris.  There  are  clubs  that  are  for  nothin<jf 
but  gambling,  and,  apart  from  these,  there  is  high  play 
at  prett)'  well  every  institution  of  the  kind.  The 
Frenchman  is  almost  incapable  of  sitting  still,  of  a  state 
of  mere  being  without  doing,  in  club  life.  The  con- 
centration of  baccarat  is  an  agreeable  variant  of  pas- 
sionless repose.  The  gambling  clubs  proper — or 
improper — take  a  fine-sounding  name,  sometimes  de- 
rived from  literature  or  art,  Ijut  they  are  well  under- 
stood to  be  simply  places  for  the  rigor  of  the  game. 
They  are  mostl)'  proprietary,  and  are  magnificently 
appointed.  The  owner  can  aftord  to  do  the  thing  well 
at  a  moderate  and,  indeed,  a  merely  nominal  subscrip- 
tion. A  good  dinner  is  supplied  at  little  above  cost 
price.  It  brings  customers  to  the  house,  and  inspires 
them  with  hope  for  the  chances  of  the  green  table. 

Of  course  the  English  variety  of  club  is  not  un- 
known. The  old-fashioned  Union,  for  instance,  is 
quite  as  select  as  Boodle's  or  White's.  It  is  almost  a 
mark  of  good  form  to  wear  your  hat  there.  You  go  to 
the  Union  as  you  might  go  to  church.  So  you  do  to 
the  Jockey.  It  has  long  since  got  rid  of  its  wildness  of 
youth,  when  Lord  Henry  Seymour,  a  brother  of  the 
Marquis  of  Hertford,  was  one  of  its  members,  and  used 
to  drive  down  in  his  coach  and  four,  to  the  edification 
of  the  boulevard.  It  is  exclusive  and  correct.  Its 
surviving  dissipations  have  a  stateliness  about  them 
which  might  almost  make  them  the  dex^otional  exer- 
cises of  any  other  institution. 

All  the  recreations  of  society  have  this  note  of  special 

115 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

adaptation.  There  is  always  an  attempt  to  rr'we  the 
turn  of  taste  or  of  luxury.  The  inventor  of  the  bran- 
bath  must  have  been  a  Frenchman.  The  very  sports 
of  the  field  are  something  of  a  garden  entertainment. 
If  the  racing  is  not  quite  so  serious  as  it  is  in  Flngland, 


ENTRANCE   TO    A    PRIVATE    HOUSE  DURING   AN    EVENING    RECEPTION 


it  is  prettier  and  more  comfortable.  Still,  it  is  good 
racing,  too.  Nothing  need  be  better  than  the  great 
meetings  at  Chantilly,  at  Auteuil,  at  Longchamps,  and 
a  dozen  other  places  that  might  be  named.  But  even 
there,  and  I  am  not  saying  it  in  the  least  in  blame, 
there  is  still  the  search  for  elegance.  The  stands  are 
more  tasteful,  the  President's  box  is  better,  the  ap- 
proaches are  better.  The  French  have  almost  the 
honor  of  the  invention  of  the  private  meeting.  They 
certainly  have  brought  it  to  its  perfection.     The  scene 

n6 


FASHIONABLE    PARIS 

varies.  Sometimes  it  is  La  Marche,  sometimes  the 
Croix  de  Berny,  sometimes  Marly-le-Roi.  This  amuse- 
ment they  combine  with  coaching.  You  are  driven 
down  in  a  party  to  some  dehghtful  httle  place  all  among 
the  green  trees,  and  there  you  ha\e  your  race  all  to 
yourselves,  your  picnic  after,  and,  perhaps,  your  dance 
to  follow.  The  sport  is  only  a  piece  dc  Fcsisfaiicc,  and 
the  true  feast  is  in  the  side-dishes. 

There  is  a  classic  simplicity  about  such  things  in 
England  which  has  its  charm  too,  but  the  world  is  wide 
enough  for  both  styles.  An  English  coach  drive  is  a 
drive  in  a  coach,  and  there  an  end.  You  go  a  long: 
way,  have  something  to  eat  in  an  inn  parlor,  and  come 
back  as  you  went.  The  French  shorten  the  drive  and 
lengthen  the  lunch.  When  the  horses  get  home  they 
will  be  put  up  in  crack  stables,  wonderful  to  behold. 
The  fittings  in  German  silver,  if  not  in  the  real  article, 
in  patent  leather,  and  in  deep-toned  mahogany,  or  what 
not,  arc  usually  covered  up,  like  drawing-room  furni- 
ture in  its  chintzes.  The  horses  themselves  see  so 
little  of  these  braveries  in  a  general  way  that  they  have 
a  tendency  to  shy  at  them,  on  company  days,  when  the 
cloths  are  removed.  In  Baron  Hirsch's  stables  the 
family  colors  used  to  be  woven  into  the  very  matting 
which  covered  the  floor.  It  is  so  with  all  French  sports 
— with  their  polo,  for  instance,  where  still  they  do  good 
work.  Compare  the  polo-ground  at  Bagatelle  for  no- 
tions— as  distinct  from  the  beauty  of  the  scene  —  with 
the  same  thing  at  Hurlingham  or  at  Ranelagh. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  riding.  The  Row  in  the 
Bois  is  prettier  in  its  surroundings  than  the  Row  in 
Hyde  Park.     It  is  more  ample,  and  it  commands  a  finer 

117 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

landscape.  The  sense  of  the  time  of  year,  spring, 
summer,  or  even  winter,  is  more  insistent.  The  per- 
sonnel may  not  be  quite  so  impressive  as  in  the  Row, 
but  that  is  another  matter.  The  riding  is  a  little  mixed. 
Everybody  thinks  himself  entitled  to  have  a  try.  The 
freedom  from  fear  and  trembling  with  which  some 
Frenchmen  will  mount  a  horse  must  ever  cause  fear 
and  trembling  in  the  beholder.  The  beggar  on  horse- 
back is  not  half  so  objectionable  as  the  rich  man  who 
has  mounted  late  in  life.  The  park  riding  is  good,  Init 
here  once  more,  as  in  all  else,  it  tends  to  err  on  the  side 
of  finesse,  and  to  suggest  the  Hippodrome.  There  are 
no  better  circus-riders  in  the  world.  Who  but  they 
have  taught  the  horse  to  waltz  and  to  make  his  bow? 
A  little  of  this  affectation  has  crept  into  the  manage- 
ment of  the  cob.  I'inesse!  finesse!  you  find  it  every- 
where—  even  in  the  institution  of  afternoon  tea.  The 
bread  and  butter  is  a  trifle  too  diaphanous  for  human 
nature's  daily  food.  The  sense  of  a  religious  rite  is  a 
little  too  intrusive.  When  the  French  copy  the  for- 
eigner, they  copy  with  the  exaggeration  of  idolatry. 

With  the  Grand  Prix  the  season  comes  to  an  end. 
People  then  begin  to  think  of  flight  to  the  spas,  to 
Marienbad,  or  to  Ischl,  where  they  catch  a  glimpse  of 
the  Austrian  court,  or  to  Aix-les-Bainsand  other  places 
at  home.  Then,  too,  comes  the  time  for  the  country 
houses.  The  country-house  life  is  highly  developed, 
only  less  so  than  in  England,  and  there  is  everything 
but  liberty.  They  will  "  entertain  "  you  morning,  noon, 
and  night,  and  they  have  yet  to  acquire  the  art  of  letting 
you  alone.  There  are  picnics  and  excursions  all  day 
long,  with  dances  and  jeiix  de  societe  at  night.     It  is 

ii8 


AN   OLD   PARISIAN    BEAU 


FASHIONABLE    PARIS 

distracting.  Some  of  the  best  houses  are  those  asso- 
ciated with  the  names  of  the  old  vineyards,  such  as  the 
Chateau  Laffitte,  the  Chateau  d'Yquem,  the  Chateau 
Margaux,  the  Cos  d'Estournel.  The  capitaHsts  are 
gradually  buying  up  these  ancient  seats  and  turning 
them  into  pleasure-houses,  as  well  as  places  of  business. 
The  vintage  pays  the  piper,  and  it  is  also  part  of  the 
sport.     You  play  at  pressing  the  grapes. 

Then  apart  from  all  this,  or  with  it,  there  are  the 
hunting  and  the  shooting.  These  are  serious  sports 
in  France,  taking  the  country  as  a  whole,  and  they  are 
not  to  be  rashly  despised  by  those  who  are  familiar 
with  only  the  exploits  of  the  cockney  sportsman.  The 
hunting  of  the  boar,  the  hunting  of  the  wolf,  are  both 
dangerous,  and  both  associated  with  fine  breeds  of 
hounds.  Boar-hunting,  in  particular,  is  no  joke.  The 
wolf-hunting  is  chiefly  a  scheme  for  the  destruction  of 
vermin.  In  some  parts  of  the  country  these  marauders 
are  very  troublesome  to  the  flocks,  and  do  any  amount 
of  damage.  Then  there  is  the  hunting  of  the  stag, 
where,  once  more,  the  decorative  tendency  comes  in. 
Their  art  of  hunting  is  as  old  as  their  countrv.  They 
have  given  a  name  to  most  of  the  terms  of  sport,  and 
they  have  invented  most  of  the  forms  and  ceremonies. 
We  have  all  laughed  over  the  great  curling  horns 
round  the  body  of  the  sportsman,  but  these  have  their 
uses  at  the  close  of  a  long  run,  when  you  hear  them 
through  the  silence  of  the  woods  and  the  witchery  of  the 
twilight,  sounding  the  death  of  the  stag.  It  is  like 
something  from  the  tale  of  Arthur  or  of  Roland.  The 
horns  wind  for  every  stage  of  the  process  —  for  the  view, 
for  the  turn  at  bay,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  right  on  to 

121 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

the  end.  There  is  quite  a  rubric  for  the  death,  and  still 
another  for  the  distribution  of  the  daintily  carved  mor- 
sels of  the  quarry  among  the  hounds  that  have  run  him 
down.  This  is  generally  done  by  torch-light,  in  the 
courtyard  of  the  chateau.  Another  great  ceremonial 
observance  is  the  benediction  of  the  hounds  on  St. 
Hubert's  day.  This  was  revived  by  the  Due  d'Aumale 
when  he  came  back  to  live  at  Chantilly,  with  a  deter- 
mination to  revive  its  glories.  All  who  wore  the  duke's 
livery  of  the  chase  had  to  attend  a  solemn  mass,  with 
the  pack  at  the  door  of  the  church,  under  the  eye  and 
whip  of  the  huntsman.  At  the  moment  of  the  elevation 
of  the  host  the  hounds  were  expected  to  bark  in  chorus, 
but  too  often  they  only  howled  in  sections  as  they  felt 
the  thong.  In  all  this  we  see  the  tendency  of  the 
French  to  dramatize  everything  in  life.  The  English 
rules  of  sport  are  for  business,  the  French  for  beauty 
and  grace. 

These  amusements  run  into  money,  and  so,  once 
more,  the  rising  men  of  the  time,  who  are  the  architects 
of  their  own  fortunes,  have  their  chance.  There  is  no 
holding  them  back  here,  as  there  is  no  holding  them 
back  anywhere.  They  buy  their  way  into  rich  families 
and  into  great  chateaux.  They,  and  the  families  into 
which  they  buy,  make  society.  Beyond  these  there  is 
a  fringe  of  betitled  impostors.  In  no  other  country  in 
the  world  are  there  so  many  dukes,  marquises,  and 
counts  who  can  give  no  intelligible  account  of  their 
blazon.  They  form  a  society  of  their  own.  They  are 
on  terms  of  tolerance  with  one  another,  for  their  prin- 
ciple is,  "  Live  and  let  live."  It  is  understood  that  I 
go  on  calling  you  "  count  "  as  long  as  you  go  on  call- 

122 


ON   COMMON   GROUND-RICH    AND   F'OOR 
AT   THE   CONFESSIONAL 


FASHIONABLE     PARIS 

ing  mc  "  baron,"  and  no  cjuestions  asked.  Their  nutri- 
ment is  the  wild  gull  from  oversea.  It  is  with  their  aid 
that  the  fresh-caught  millionaire  from  Brazil  begins  to 
furnish  his  salon.  The  house-agent  will  contract  for 
them  at  a  pinch,  as  for  the  chairs  and  tables.  The 
sham  nobility  take  their  seats  at  the  newcomer's  board, 
and  if  they  respect  his  spoons,  he  may  be  a  long  time 
before  he  finds  out  the  difference  between  them  and  the 
real  article. 

A  more  respectable  member  of  "the  fringe"  is  the 
broken-down  gentleman  w  ho  has  lived  in  good  society, 
and  who,  for  a  variety  of  possible  reasons,  has  lost  his 
footing.  These  dejected  spirits  tend  generally  to  haunt 
the  scenes  of  former  bliss.  One  of  their  gathering- 
places  is  at  the  junction  of  the  Avenue  of  the  Bois  with 
the  Place  de  I'Etoile.  They  take  their  seats  there  on 
fine  afternoons,  to  watch  the  long  procession  of  car- 
riages and  live  again  in  their  memories  of  former 
splendor.  The  mention  of  them  is  not  without  signifi- 
cance at  the  end  of  this  survey.  Truly  they  represent 
a  dead  and  gone  state  of  things,  or,  at  any  rate,  a  dying 
one.  The  fine  folks  of  their  memories  are  really  pass- 
ing away  as  an  order.  Fashionable  Paris  is  no  longer 
to  be  confounded  with  aristocratic  Paris.  The  two 
things  are  separate  and  distinct.  Fashion  has  out- 
grown its  old  bounds  of  the  old  families,  and  aristoc- 
racy, as  a  governing  force,  has  become  a  mere  survival 
of  habit.  The  two  aristocracies,  the  old  and  the  new, 
the  Legitimist  and  the  Bonapartist,  —  not  to  speak  of 
the  Orleanist,  as  shoddy  as  the  last,  —  are  mutually  de- 
structive. As  they  cannot  agree  to  revere  one  another, 
they  have  helped  the  crowd  to  despise  them  all.     A 

125 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

new  society  has  come  into  power  by  process  of  natural 
change.  Education,  which  is  the  real  basis,  is  within 
the  reach  of  all. 

Republics  must  educate  or  perish.  Under  this  one  no 
nimble  spirit  need  be  ignorant  for  want  of  the  chance  of 
knowledge.  There  is  small  difference  of  opportunity 
between  the  duke's  son  and  the  cobbler's.  Manner  is  a 
heritage  which  the  French  have  in  common.  All  that 
remains  to  win  social  importance — and  I  put  it  last  in 
no  parado.xical  spirit  —  is  to  win  wealth.  There  again, 
whatever  the  dignity  of  the  pursuit,  the  career  is  at  least 
open.  Access  to  political  power  is  equally  a  part  of  the 
heritage.  With  this  and  with  wealth,  education,  and 
manners,  social  importance  comes  at  call,  and  the  mere 
handle  to  the  name  becomes  a  pure  superfluity.  This 
is  the  real  meaning  of  what  is  now  going  on  in  France. 
The  old  hereditary  sets  are  being  cjuiedy  elbowed  out 
of  the  way  by  the  new  claimants  for  a  place  in  the  sun. 
The  big  names,  as  they  appear  in  society  journals  and 
in  the  letters  of  foreign  correspondents,  have  a  quite 
fictitious  importance.  Fashionable  Paris  is  now  one  of 
the  newest  things  in  the  place. 


126 


PALACES   OF  THE   NATIONS,    ON   THE   SEINE 
NIGHT   EFFECT 


PARISIAN    PASTIMES 


<Joazidian  .J^adtuned 


THE  Parisian  is  more  given  to  pastimes  than  to 
sports.  The  distinction  is,  in  his  view,  that 
pastimes  are  made  for  man,  whereas  man  is 
notoriously  made  for  sports.  He  carries  a  sport  as  far  as 
it  may  go,  for  sheer  amusement,  and  stops  there.  All  the 
rest — that  tends  to  the  ideal  perfection  of  the  athlete — he 
counts  but  labor  and  sorrow.  This  is  in  harmon)'  with 
his  entire  outlook  on  life.  He  is  mainly  sociable  in  his 
amusements,  rather  than  mainly  competitive.  To  me 
he  never  seems  less  himself  than  when  racing  for  a 
prize,  by  day  and  by  night,  on  a  cycle  track  that  re- 
minds one  of  some  foolish  adaptation  of  the  scheme  of 
the  praying-wheel.  So  the  best  of  his  recreative  life  is 
a  day  in  the  country,  with  only  just  such  amusements 
as  comport  with  rural  ease.  Between  his  setting  forth 
in  the  morning  and  his  coming  back  at  night,  weary 
with  blessedness,  he  has  picnicked  in  one  of  the  outly- 
ing woods  of  the  capital,  perhaps  with  his  entire  family, 
including  the  mother-in-law. 

The   returning  crowds   at  the  stations  have  not  all 
been  to  Versailles,  St.-Cloud,  and  St. -Germain.    These 

13* 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

places  are  more  or  less  inevitable  to  the  many;  but  the 
wiser  know  where  to  find  the  less-known  woods  and 
heights,  and  the  scenes  that  have  as  yet  escaped  adver- 
tisement. Starting,  maybe,  from  Bougival,  they  have 
looked  at  the  site  of  Josephine's  country  house,  now 
but  a  memory,  and  have  thought  perhaps  what  curious 
inclosures  and  reinclosures  busy  man  is  ever  making 
for  himself  in  space.  An  old  house  is  but  a  little  set- 
ting in  the  void  for  scenes  from  the  drama  of  life.  It 
vanishes;  a  newer  takes  its  place;  and  one  cubic  inclo- 
sure  in  its  time  witnesses  the  play  of  many  parts.  To 
think  of  these  scenes  in  their  succession  through  the 
ages  is  to  have  the  very  air  peopled  with  ghosts,  and  to 
risk  the  mental  distraction  of  a  witches'  revel  But  to 
consider  so  is  to  consider  too  curiously  in  this  con- 
nection. 

The  stroll  is  across  corn-fields  with  woody  heights 
on  one  side.  The  painters  of  Corot's  generation  used 
to  harbor  here,  and  many  of  them  left  pictures  for  their 
score  at  Souvent's  restaurant.  The  more  knowing 
wayfarers,  of  course,  avoid  these  vanities  of  anecdote, 
but  everything  may  be  excused  to  the  sight-seer.  At 
the  utmost,  the  others  have  walked  by  the  river-bank 
to  look  at  the  Machine  de  Marly,  a  huge  wheel  that 
carries  water  to  the  settlements  on  the  height.  If  they 
were  still  for  civilization  they  mounted  by  Le  Pecq  to 
St.-Germain.  If  they  wanted  a  change  after  that,  they 
branched  off  to  Les  Loges,  and  registered  vows  to 
return  for  the  annual  fair  in  September,  to  dance  and 
sup  by  torch-light  according  to  immemorial  custom, 
and  so  home.  Some,  again,  have  started  for  Sannois, 
on  the  Northern  and  Western  railways,  for   the  pano- 

132 


PARISIAN    PASTIMES 

rama  seen  from  the  windmill  on  the  height,  and  have 
pushed  on  to  Cormeilles,  by  way  of  the  hills,  with  the  val- 
ley and  the  river  at  a  cozy  distance  below;  or  they  have 
tarried  at  Herblay  to  play  at  fishing  under  the  trees. 

Innumerable  are  the  ways  in  which  you  may  tire 
yourself  in  these  environs  on  a  summer  afternoon.  The 
ultra-civilized  way  is  to  take  train  to  Enghien,  the 
township  of  pleasure  which  has  grown  up,  with  the 
help  of  capital,  as  the  gaudy  framework  of  a  sulphur- 
spring.  Another,  and  a  better,  is  to  make  for  Mont- 
morency, where  Jean  Jacques  set  up  his  hermitage  at 
the  top  of  the  hill,  and  at  a  point  in  time  when  the  place 
was  still  most  ancient  of  days,  and  mellowing  in  a  rich 
decay  of  historic  associations.  Here  again,  and  right 
on  from  here  to  Andilly,  it  is  all  fairyland  from  the 
heights — Paris  in  the  far  distance,  picked  out  in  the 
white  of  its  stonework  and  the  geld  of  the  dome,  with 
verdant  belts  of  flowers  and  market-gardens  midway. 
At  Andilly  you  are  on  the  verge  of  the  forest  of  Mont- 
morency, and  may  go  right  through  to  Bethemont,  or 
partly  through  to  St.-Lcu  for  the  train.  And  even  by 
this  compromise  you  may  get  dusty  and  tired  and 
parched  enough  for  the  mood  of  rural  happiness. 

Paris  is  fringed  all  about  with  these  woods  and 
forests,  anything  but  primeval,  of  course,  under  modern 
administration,  yet  still  w  ild  enough  for  proxocation  to 
much  of  the  fugitive  verse  of  the  time.  Fontainebleau, 
beyond  this  inner  circle  of  umbrage,  is  a  larger  order, 
and  if  only  you  have  enough  self-control  to  keep  from 
the  chateau  and  from  Harbison,  it  is  more  majestic  with 
its  giant  oaks  and  its  titanic  boulders.  Yet  the  tourist 
will  inevitably  go  to  the  one  for  its  association  with  the 

^33 


PARIS    Ol-     TO-DAY 

painters  Millet  and  Rousseau,  and  to  the  other  on  the 
gentle  compulsion  of  the  guide-books.  Michelet,  in 
his  study  of  the  insect  life  of  the  forest,  keeps  through- 
out to  the  note  of  its  savage  charm.  Dearer  to  the 
elect  of  these  pilgrim  crowds  is  Sceaux,  almost  due 
south  of  the  capital,  and,  in  a  sense,  within  a  stone's 
throw  of  it,  as  befits  a  scene  of  natural  beauty  that  was 
accessible  in  the  time  of  Paul  de  Kock.  To  readers  of 
that  half-forgotten  wTiter  it  is  still  haunted  by  the 
shadow  of  the  "Jeune  Homme  Charmant,"  and  of  his 
brotherhood  in  that  larger  sense  which  includes  sister- 
hood as  well. 

But  the  glory  of  Sceaux  is  that  it  is  a  stepping-stone 
to  "  Robinson."  Robinson  is  our  realized  ideal  of  a 
cockney  paradise.  It  includes  a  certain  suggestion  of 
savage  freedom,  with  due  facilities  for  the  fun  of  the 
fair— the  wilderness  tempered  by  Coney  Island.  It  is 
a  restaurant,  and  the  subject  of  its  votive  title  is  no 
other  than  our  old  friend  Crusoe.  The  idea  is  that  you 
leave  teeming  Paris  for  this  retreat,  in  which  you  may 
meditate  on  the  shows  of  things,  and,  between  train 
and  train,  play  at  being  cut  off  from  civilization.  So,  in 
its  garden,  you  find  a  stately  tree  w^here  you  may  lunch 
or  dine  in  bowers  cunningly  perched  high  in  the 
branches.  There  are  two  or  three  of  these  in  tiers,  and 
all  of  them,  especially  the  topmost,  command  views  of 
charming  scenery.  The  vogue  of  Robinson  has  led  to 
the  invention  of  many  fraudulent  trade-marks.  The 
village  abounds  in  restaurants  dedicated  to  "Old  Rob- 
inson," to  "Crusoe,"  and  to  different  variants  of  the 
name,  including  one  which  boldly  starts  on  a  new  line 
by  a  titular  invocation  to  Man  Friday. 

13+ 


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-V 


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jS 


SUNDAY   I'ICNICS    IN   THE   BOIS   DE    VINCENNES 


PARISIAN    PASTIMES 

But  Robinson,  ]jure  and  simple,  is  the  genuine 
article.  The  title  illustrates  the  tendency  of  the  French 
to  grasp  at  the  first  thing  that  conies  handy  in  English 
names.  The  surname  they  generally  give  up  for  a 
bad  joJj,  but  they  clutch  at  the  Tom,  Dick,  or  Harry 
that  precedes  it,  and  hold  on  for  dear  life.  Even  when 
they  have  it  by  the  right  end,  they  sometimes  contrive 
to  go  wrong.  Crabb  Robinson  tells  us  that,  all  through 
a  ceremonial  dinner  in  his  honor,  Mme.  Guizot  over- 
whelmed him  with  compliments  on  the  creation  of  ce 
cJiarinant  Vcndredi,  in  a  haz\  Ijelief  that  he  was  the 
author  of  the  famous  work. 

Robinson  may  serve  to  illustrate  what  I  mean  as  to 
the  ordinary  Parisian  relation  to  sports  and  games.  The 
throngs  set  out,  in  the  first  place,  for  fresh  air  and  land- 
scape; and  for  diversions  they  take  anything  that  comes 
in  their  way.  Sometimes  they  carry  a  ball  to  play  with, 
more  often  they  find  their  toys  in  the  suburban  res- 
taurant. An  open-mouthed  frog  into  which  they  pitch 
a  leaden  nicker  will  amuse  them  for  hours. 

Those  of  nicer  taste  will  perhaps  prefer  the  Port 
Royal  country.  This  is  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of 
the  country  as  of  that  ruined  memorial  of  a  community 
of  men  and  women  who  tried  a  fall  with  the  Church  of 
Rome,  in  the  interests  of  the  higher  spiritual  life,  and 
got  very  much  the  worst  of  it.  The  route  is  by  train 
from  Montparnasse  to  Trappes,  beyond  Versailles,  and 
thence  on  foot  through  Voisins  to  the  old  abbey  which 
was  the  seat  of  the  settlement.  For  others  there  is 
C'ernay  la  \'ille,  a  woodland  haunt  of  artists,  exquisite 
in  hill  and  valley,  hamlet  and  ruin.  Or,  again,  the  idler 
may  take  train  to  Le  Plessis  Belleville,  in  the  north- 

^11 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

east,  and  walk  to  Ermenonville  for  more  souvenirs  of 
Rousseau. 

But  why  go  on?  The  whole  vernal  basin,  in  the 
center  of  which  Paris  lies,  is  a  scene  of  witching  beauty 
—  beauty  of  hill  and  dale,  beauty  of  association  suited 
to  every  taste.  So,  as  we  have  seen,  if  you  like  to 
flavor  the  picturesque  with  literature,  there  are  Erme- 
nonville, Port  Royal,  Montmorency.  If  you  arc  for 
things  "  paintable,"  you  have  Cernay,  Fontaineblcau, 
and  Gretz.  If  angling  is  the  excuse,  there  are  Mantes, 
Marly,  Andresy,  Lagny,  and  Charenton ;  while  for 
boating  you  can  hardly  go  wrong  at  Rueil,  Herblay, 
Bougival,  and  Nogent  on  the  Marne.  In  one  of  their 
aspects  these  are  sports  highly  cultivated.  In  their 
relation  to  the  ordinary  life  of  the  people  they  are  mere 
incidents  of  an  outing.  The  ordinary  Parisian  rowing 
is  but  three  men  in  a  boat,  who,  in  spite  of  their  being 
on  a  river,  are  still  very  much  at  sea.  More  commonly 
still,  it  is  but  one  man  with  a  girl,  both  happily  un- 
aware that  they  arc  in  peril  of  their  lives.  They  have 
not  far  to  go.  Their  mark  is  the  little  restaurant  on  the 
island  which  is  the  sole  aim  of  the  excursion.  Hiey 
have  come  out  not  so  much  to  row  as  to  breakfast  in 
rowing  toggery,  to  chatter  aquatics  and  scandal,  and  to 
sing  chansonettes. 

In  the  same  way,  the  holiday  fishing  is  often  very 
little  better  than  the  line  and  the  bent  pin,  as  the  foot- 
ball is  only  a  vindictive  punishment  of  a  leaky  india- 
rubber  sphere  which  requires  frequent  inflation  by  a 
united  family.  So,  too,  cycling,  although  the  French 
are  capable  of  carrying  it  to  great  perfection  on  the 
track,  is  often,  for  the  purpose  of  these  excursions,  a 

138 


PARISIAN     PASTIMES 

young  man  giving  a  young  woman  a  ride  in  a  bicycle 
gig,  in  which  she  courteously  affects  to  sit  at  ease,  while 
he  toils  up  the  rural  slope.  Some  of  these  contrivances 
are  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made,  and  include  storage 
for  the  baby,  and  for  the  provisions  for  the  day. 

For  rowing,  as  a  sport,  there  are  clubs  all  about 
Paris  and  all  about  France,  with  a  Parisian  Club  of  the 
Oar  as  lawmaker.  The  laws  are  made  in  a  congress 
held  annually  in  the  capital,  and  timed  for  the  match 
between  the  eights  of  the  Seine  and  the  Marne,  the 
first  event  of  the  rowing  year.  Asnieres  was  once  the 
great  metropolitan  center,  but  avoid  it  now  exactly  as 
you  would  avoid  the  plague,  for  it  has  guilty  relations 
with  the  drains  of  Paris.  Everywhere  there  is  difficulty 
in  getting  good  boats  for  hire.  The  supply  is  naturally 
adjusted  to  the  demand  of  the  majority,  who  need  tubs 
in  which  they  may  paddle,  but  may  with  difficulty 
drown.  One  of  the  great  annual  races  is  between  the 
Rowing  Club  dc  Paris  and  the  Societe  Nautique  de  la 
Marne.  The  championship  of  the  Marne  is  for  the 
early  part  of  September.  About  a  month  later  comes 
the  fi.xture  for  the  great  race  on  the  Seine  for  the  cham- 
pionship of  France.  This  is  in  three  heats,  each  of  two 
thousand  meters,  and  it  is  open  to  all  nations.  It  is  an 
old  institution.  At  first  the  English  had  matters  all 
their  own  way,  l)ut  the  French  submitted  with  a  good 
grace  for  the  sake  of  the  lesson.  Then,  gradually 
learning  the  management  of  scull  and  skiff,  they  sent 
men  like  Armet  and  Lein  to  victory  on  their  own 
course,  the  latter  to  the  more  daring  venture  at  Henley, 
where,  however,  he  had  to  lower  his  colors  in  the  home 
of  the  sport. 

139 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

The  Parisians  have  little  to  learn  from  anybody  in 
scientific  cycling.  Without  entering  into  too  technical 
scrutiny  of  records,  it  may  be  said  that  they  have 
brought  the  machine  to  high  perfection  as  an  instru- 


iirilAK    i.ONCliKl    IN    THE   LUXEMBOURG   GARDENS 


ment  of  sport,  and  to  higher  perfection  as  one  of  use. 
They  not  only  cultivate  heart-disease  on  the  racing- 
track  with  as  much  assiduity  as  other  people,  and  hold 
frequent  race  meetings,  but  they  use  the  machine 
extensively  in  daily  life,  on  ordinary  errands  of  busi- 
ness or  pleasure.     This  is   the   true  test  of  any  new 

14.0 


PARISIAN    PASTIMES 

nicthcjd  of  locomotion.  The}'  arc  admirably  seconded 
by  the  administration  of  Paris,  which  gives  them  good 
roads  everywhere,  and  sometimes  roads  all  to  them- 
selves, as  in  the  approaches  Ui  the  Bois,  which,  for  all 
the  qualities  of  a  cycling  course,  is  about  the  best  in 
the  world.  The  revolution,  in  this  land  of  the  motor,  is 
naturally  the  motor  cycle.  The  rate  at  which  the  Pa- 
risians charge  through  the  public  thoroughfares  on  this 
fearful  contrivance,  I  have  already  mentioned.  None 
but  the  most  nimble  can  hope  to  a\'oid  them.  The 
motor  is  the  modern  short  cut  to  the  survival  of  the 
fittest. 

They  have  made  many  laudable  attempts  to  acclima- 
tize foot-ball,  and  have  taken  a  beating,  at  regular 
intervals,  from  one  of  the  English  visiting  teams.  If 
they  do  not  succeed  in  this  as  well  as  they  might,  it  is 
in  part  to  be  imputed  to  them  as  merit.  As  persons  of 
taste,  they  have  a  great  horror  of  brutalite  in  sport. 
"  We  do  not  want  to  turn  Erench  lads  into  English 
ones,"  cries  M.  Ribot,  in  his  important  work  on  educa- 
tional reform  published  the  other  day.  "  Rough  sports 
do  not  suit  our  race,  more  refined  in  its  vigneiir  ele- 
gante than  that  of  the  Anglo-Saxon."  In  the  last 
resort,  they  usually  fail  to  see  why  they  should  suffer 
for  their  enjoyments,  and  they  sicken  with  disgust, 
rather  than  with  fear,  when  the  dhooli-bearers  and  the 
surgeons  follow  the  teams  into  the  foot-ball  field. 

This  is  the  Erench  note,  always  the  touch  of  ele- 
gance, and  this  is  why  a  certain  association  with 
"  fashion  "  is  of  the  essence  of  Erench  sport.  It  does 
not,  like  English  sjiort,  usuallv  begin  among  the  people 
retaining  something   of  the    primitive  wildness    of  its 

141 


PARIS    OF     1()-DAY 

origin;  or,  if  it  does,  it  is  always  trying  to  mount  to 
select  circles.  Foot-ball  will  take  a  long  time  to  reach 
the  French  masses.  Their  instincts  know  not  the 
stern  joy  of  the  scrimmage.  For  all  their  combative- 
ness,  they  regard  life  as  a  progression,  an  orderly 
development,  not  as  a  battle  and  a  march.  For  this 
sport,  as  for  most  of  the  others  that  involve  danger,  we 
must  wait  on  the  upper  classes.  They  have  imported 
foot-ball  and  polo  and  what  not,  and  have  done  their 
best  to  tame  them  into  diversions  fit  for  a  man  who 
values  a  whole  skin. 

Their  chalet  of  the  Racing  Club  in  the  Bois  de 
Boulogne  is  a  model  of  taste  in  the  rustic  style.  It  is 
all  prettiness  without  and  within  ;  and,  in  the  latter,  it 
does  not  disdain  the  aid  of  millinery.  The  hall  is  hung 
in  sky-blue  and  white,  and  with  the  diplomas  of  honor 
won  in  the  field.  To-day  the  club,  with  its  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  members,  claims  the  lead  among  French 
societies  of  athletic  sport.  It  began  in  the  humblest 
way,  but  still  among  the  "  directing  classes."  A  few 
young  fellows  at  the  Lycee  Condorcet  wanted  to  stretch 
their  legs,  and  bethought  them  of  foot-racing  in  the 
English  style.  But  first  they  tried  it  in  the  French, 
that  is  to  say,  with  prettiness  as  the  first  end  and  aim. 
They  ran  in  satin  blouses,  in  jockeys'  breeches,  in 
jockeys'  hats,  in  jockeys'  boots,  nay,  some  positively 
with  jockeys'  whips  in  their  hands,  as  though  with 
some  covert  design  of  touching  themselves  up  behind. 
Then  gradually  they  swept  all  this  nonsense  away, 
crossed  the  Channel  for  their  lesson,  and  rigged  them- 
selves in  the  style  approved  to  experience.  From  that 
time  forth   they  did   exceedingly  well.     They  invited 

14.2 


PARISIAN     PASTIiVIES 

English  amateurs  to  compete,  and  held  against  them, 
year  by  year,  the  championship  in  three  of  the  four  dis- 
tances, the  shorter  ones.  Even  the  mile  they  won 
three  times  out  of  six ;  and  though  their  champion, 
Borel,  was  beaten  in  1891  by  an  American,  he  made  a 
good  fight  for  it.  They  train  for  their  work,  though, 
characteristically,  always  under  the  doctor's  orders  for 
moderation.  In  the  same  way  they  brought  in  foot- 
ball, where  they  have  yet  to  beat  their  masters,  and 
they  are  now  introducing  it  into  the  playgrounds  of  the 
lyceums. 

Then  they  busied  themselves  with  lawn-tennis,  and 
with  success.  For  their  best  in  this  line  we  must  go 
to  the  club  of  the  lie  de  Puteaux  on  the  Seine,  a  charm- 
ing rural  retreat  lying  under  the  guns  of  Mont  Vale- 
rien.  There  you  have  about  a  dozen  courts,  with  great 
refinement  in  the  domestic  service,  as  well  as  the  rigor 
of  the  game.  Still  toiling,  and  not  in  vain,  after  its 
English  masters,  our  'high  life"  has  now  its  Polo  Club 
near  Bagatelle,  in  the  Bois.  It  exacts  strict  guaranties 
of  respectability.  On  the  ornamental  side  none  are 
eligible  for  admission  but  the  mothers,  wives,  and  un- 
married sisters  and  daughters  of  members.  For  their 
benefit  there  is  a  regular  service  of  five-o'clock  tea,  under 
umbrella  tents.  It  is  not  only  polo,  but  polo  with  a 
background  of  dwarf  forests,  of  the  spires  of  St.-Cloud, 
of  the  meadows  of  Longchamp. 

In  like  manner  the  French  are  acclimatizing-  grolf, 
especially  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  At  the 
same  time  Paris  is  reviving  for  its  own  benefit  several 
of  the  national  games.  To  see  some  pretty  play  of 
longue pcmme,  the  old  longue  paume  of  the  South,  go 

1+3 


PARIS    OF     lO-DAY 

on  Tuesdays  and  Fridays  at  about  five,  and  on  Sun- 
days all  day  long,  to  the  Gardens  of  the  Luxembourg. 
It  is  played  there  with  rackets  according  to  the 
best  tradition,  not  with  the  hand,  the  tambourine,  or 
the  wicker  glove,  which  are  still  in  vogue  in  the 
Pyrenees. 

This  is  a  popular  game,  since  it  is  played  both  by 
and  before  the  crowd.  The  fashionable  sports  aftect 
seclusion  and  take  great  pains  to  secure  it.  Most  of 
them  had  their  modest  beginnings  at  the  old  ///'  mix 
pigeons  in  the  Hois,  until  they  grew  strong  enough,  as 
we  have  seen,  to  set  up  housekeeping  for  themselves. 
The  tir  au.x  pigeons,  in  its  turn,  began  as  a  skating 
club,  where  the  happy  few  might  enjoy  themselves  in 
winter  without  intrusion  from  their  fellow-creatures. 
The  antiquary  may  find  it  worth  while  to  examine  the 
archives  of  these  institutions  for  traces  of  English 
origin.  In  the  old  rules  of  the  Paris  Gun  Club,  for 
instance,  he  will  find:  "II  est  interdit  de  tirer  les  deux 
coups  de  fusil  a  la  fois:  si  le  pigeon  est  tue  il  est  compte 
'No  Bird.'"  "  Le  tireur  en  place,  et  pret  a  tirer,  doit 
crier  'Pull.'  " 

Pistol-shooting  is  much  more  nearly  indigenous.  As 
duelists,  the  French  naturally  have  to  learn  to  kill  in 
both  kinds.  The  crack  shots  are  celebrated  in  luxuri- 
ous monographs  of  sport,  adorned  with  their  portraits, 
and  doing  full  justice  to  their  "  records."  The  day  of 
the  perfect  young  man  of  fashion  includes  some  prac- 
tice with  the  pistol  at  one  of  the  private  galleries. 
Sometimes  he  has  a  shooting-gallery  in  his  garden, 
and  fires  a  few  shots  on  rising  as  a  substitute  for 
morning   prayer.     Then    he   usually  takes  a  turn  on 

144 


CROWDS   LEAVING   A    RAILWAY-STATION    AFTER 
A    DAY    IN    THE   COUNTRY 


PARISIAN    PASTIMES 

horseback  in  the  Bois  —  I  speak  by  the  card.  After 
breakfast  he  fires  more  shots,  at  some  rendezvous  in 
town.  He  discusses  the  day's  shooting  with  his 
friends,  and  when  this  weighty  business  is  over,  I  am 
assured,  he  has  cleared  his  conscience  of  more  than 
half  of  its  burden  of  duties.  A  few  \'isits,  the  theater, 
and  the  club  complete  the  day. 

Shooting  proper,  the  sport  of  the  gun  in  the  coverts, 
is  a  more  serious  matter.  It  is  hard  to  get  your  co\'ert 
to  yourself  in  this  democratic  country.  What  I  wrote 
years  ago  on  this  subject  is  truer  than  ever  to-day. 
The  most  familiar  type  of  sportsman  is  the  small  rural 
proprietor,  whose  shots,  perforce,  trespass  on  his  neigh- 
bor's field  because  of  the  narrow  limits  of  his  own.  He 
is  abroad  on  Sundays  and  on  holidays  with  his  solitary 
dog,  picking  up  the  crumbs  of  sport,  and  it  is  danger- 
ous to  interfere  with  him  in  his  own  commune,  because 
he  is  an  elector  as  well  as  a  proprietor,  and  perhaps  his 
voice  counts  in  the  election  of  M.  le  Maire.  The  better 
kind  of  sportsmen  form  small  syndicates,  or  shooting 
societies,  and  at  the  end  of  the  day's  shooting  they  di- 
vide the  bag  in  equal  portions,  drawing  lots  for  the  odd 
pieces,  or  offering  them,  as  a  sop  to  Cerberus,  to  the 
peasants  on  whose  grounds  they  have  trespassed.  In 
many  instances,  however,  they  buy  the  right  to  pass 
over  certain  fields,  and  this  is  the  main  object  of  their 
association.  The  great  subdivision  of  landed  property 
in  France  tends  to  confront  you  with  a  proprietor  at 
every  step,  and  the  peasant  often  derives  no  small  part 
of  his  revenue  from  the  shooting. 

But  the  great  cities  send  the  most  numerous  contin- 
gent into  the  fields,  for  almost  every  notary,  doctor,  and 

H7 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

government  clerk  has  his  weekl)  or  monthly  holidu)' 
with  the  gun.  The  preserves  of  the  Seine-and-Oise, 
of  the  Seine-and-Marne,  and  of  the  Oisc,  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Paris,  probably  contain  as  much  game  as 
all  the  rest  of  Prance.  The  best  of  these,  of  course,  be- 
long to  the  great  proprietors,  the  bankers  and  other 
millionaires,  and  the  ne.xt  in  value  are  those  that  lie 
near  enough  to  get  the  stray  game  from  the  rich  man's 
field.  These  adjacent  lots  are  much  sought  after  by 
the  humbler  syndicates.  The  shooting  at  the  chateaux, 
on  the  great  country  estates,  presents  much  the  same 
features  as  in  England  —  invitations  to  a  large  circle 
and  a  generous  hospitality.  The  main  difference  is 
that  the  invitations  are  select  only  in  regard  to  social 
standing,  not  to  skill  with  the  gun.  The  keenness  of  the 
French  sense  of  the  ridiculous  does  not  extend  to  fail- 
ure in  sport :  you  miss,  and  there  is  an  end  of  it ;  and 
as  nobody  thinks  much  the  worse  of  you,  you  do  not 
think  any  the  worse  of  yourself.  The  standard  of  com- 
petence is  not  a  high  one,  and  even  shooting  is  more 
of  a  pastime  than  a  sport.  Ladies  sometimes  take  the 
field  along  with  the  men,  and  the  Orleans  princesses 
and  the  Princesse  Murat  used  to  stand  in  the  front  rank. 
The  finest  shooting-estates  in  Prance  are  those  of  the 
late  Due  d' Aumale  and  of  the  Rothschilds. 

Sometimes,  in  the  more  remote  excursions  after 
smaller  game,  a  wild  boar  crosses  the  patli ;  so  the 
prudent  sportsman  takes  his  hunting-knife  or  even  his 
revolver  with  him,  as  well  as  his  gun.  The  Prench  list 
of  necessaries  for  the  field  is  alarmingly  large  ;  the  sta- 
tions at  Rambouillet  and  Pontainebleau,  on  nights  when 
people  are  going  down  for  the  shooting,  are  encum- 

14.8 


PARISIAN    PASTIMES 

bered   with  materiel  de  guerre  in  a  manner  that  sug- 
gests a  mobilization  of  the  army.     The  Revolution  saw 


NIGHT    SCENE    IN     A    FAUBOURG    STREET 

the  last  of  the  grand  battues  of  the  old  school ;  and  then 
the  infuriated  people  held  the  gun,  and  slaughtered 
without  mercy,  for  food,  without  a  thought  of  the  fu- 


1+9 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

turc.  The  partridge  never  fairly  recovered  from  that 
blow. 

Fencing  has  been  democratized  like  all  else.  At  one 
time  the  management  of  the  rapier  was  confined  ex- 
clusively to  the  upper  classes.  Now  there  is  an  excel- 
lent fencing-school  at  the  dry-goods  store  of  the  Bon 
Marche.  The  young  men  at  the  counters  take  their 
exercise  in  that  way  after  working-hours. 

As  our  business  is  with  the  people  rather  than  with 
the  dandies,  let  us  now  go  a-fishing  with  the  loungers 
of  the  quays.  Their  pastime  imports  no  great  harm  to 
the  fish,  because  it  must  not  import  any  great  fatigue 
to  the  fisherman.  The  Seine,  as  it  flows  in  or  near 
Paris,  has  been  fouled  by  the  sewage.  Still,  as  these 
people  preeminently  live  in  their  traditions,  they  fish  in 
the  new  waters  as  they  fished  in  the  old.  No  other 
capital  can  show  so  many  anglers  to  the  mile  of  bank. 
They  angle  in  the  suds  of  the  riverine  laundries,  in  the 
brown  waterfalls  of  the  sewers.  They  crowd  the  Ecluse 
de  la  Monnaie  at  the  Pont  Neuf,  which,  in  spite  of  its 
position  in  the  very  heart  of  Paris,  is  comparatively 
calm.  This,  of  course,  in  its  independence  of  raw 
result,  is  the  true  principle  of  enjoyment  alike  in  sport 
and  in  life.  Nor  are  the  results  unimportant:  with  an 
average  of  one  bite  to  the  thousand  baits,  great  is  the 
joy  of  fruition  for  the  man  who  lands  his  fish,  and  of 
expectation  for  the  huge  remainder.  There  is  a  streak 
of  passivity  in  the  French  nature,  in  needful  balance 
with  its  known  tendency  to  excitement.  The  sight  of 
the  quays  on  a  summer  morning  strengthens  the  proba- 
bility that  one  Frenchman  wrote  the  "  Imitation,"'  and 
explains  how  others  founded  Port  Royal.     Those  who 

150 


PARISIAN     PASTIMKS 

are  not  fishing  are  washing  and  combing  the  dog; 
those  who  are  doing  neither  are  looking  on. 

The  preference  of  the  pastime  to  the  sport  accounts 
for  the  continued  popularity  of  the  Parisian  fair. 
Elsewhere,  in  all  save  in  its  primitive  trading  uses,  the 
fair  is  on  the  decline.  As  a  revel,  it  is  but  a  memory 
in  London.  Greenwich  and  "  Bartelmy  "  became  too 
much  of  a  good  thing.  In  Ireland  they  hold  that, 
when  a  skull  comes  to  ill  hap  at  one  of  these  gather- 
ings, what  might  otherwise  be  a  verdict  of  man- 
slaughter becomes  a  verdict  of  felo  de  se.  The  owner 
has  literally  brought  it  on  his  own  head.  The  mere 
fun  of  the  fair,  as  an  industry,  flourishes  in  full  luxu- 
riance in  France.  Families  are  born  into  the  business, 
and  die  out  of  it — sometimes  with  large  fortunes  to 
their  credit,  computed  in  live  stock  of  the  desert  and 
freaks  of  nature,  as  well  as  in  bank-notes. 

They  pitch  by  the  calendar  in  the  environs,  and 
even  in  the  capital  at  Faster.  This  is  for  the  ginger- 
bread fair,  held  in  the  Place  de  la  Nation,  better  known 
as  the  old  Place  du  Trone.  At  other  times  they 
occupy  the  great  avenues  which  stretch  from  the  bar- 
riers to  the  open  country  —  for  instance,  the  one  that 
runs  from  the  Port  Maillot  to  the  river,  a  good  four  or 
five  miles  of  booths,  counting  the  two  rows.  Through- 
out the  summer  season  there  is  not  a  fete-day  without 
its  fair  in  one  or  other  of  the  little  townships  beyond 
the  walls.  It  is  only  a  short  journey  by  tram  or  train, 
and  you  are  at  Versailles,  St. -Cloud,  Meudon,  or  what 
not.  The  motto  is,  "  Every  man  in  his  humor."  for  the 
trivialities  of  popular  amusement,  ^"ou  ma\-  do  no- 
thing in  ten  thousand  ways — by  gambling  for  cakes  or 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

for  pocket-knives,  by  throwini^  a  ball  at  rag  dolls,  by 
trying  your  strength  at  rickety  machines  which  some- 
times yield  their  whole  internal  economy  to  one  vigor- 
ous pull  of  a  plowman,  or  by  having  your  fortune  told. 
The  daughter  of  Egypt  stands  on  the  tail-board  of  her 
van,  and  gives  the  gaping  throng  a  gratuitous  sample 
of  her  wares.     For  this   purpose   she  whispers   fates 


A     BICYCLE     TKAILER 


through  a  long  speaking-trumpet,  usually  directed  by 
judicious  preference  to  the  longest  ear.  In  these  con- 
fidences you  may  learn  that  )'ou  have  wasted  your 
time  in  the  hopeless  pursuit  of  a  fair  beauty,  while 
another,  as  yet  in  the  nature  of  the  dark  horse,  appeals 
in  vain  to  your  fatuous  blindness  for  a  glance.  The 
promise  of  full  particulars  for  fivepence  proves  an 
almost  irresistible  temptation. 

When  you  tire  of  this,  you  may  go  shooting  for  many 


PARISIAN    PASTIMES 

varieties  of  game,  on  a  system  which  giv'es  you  the  ex- 
citement of  the  chase  in  the  open  without  its  fatigues, 
and,  in  fact,  once  more  reduces  sport  to  its  due  propor- 
tion of  pastime.  The  prey  —  hares  and  rabbits,  and 
wild  fowl  by  courtesy  so  called  —  form  a  hajjpy  family, 
and  await  their  doom  in  a  cage  with  an  edifying  resig- 
nation that  is  manifestly  quite  consistent  with  good 
appetite.  It  is  supposed  to  be  determined  by  your  suc- 
cess in  attaining  a  bull's-eye  just  above  their  heads, 
with  the  aid  of  a  rifle  supplied  by  the  proprietor.  You 
have  only  to  hit  the  mark  to  have  your  choice  among 
these  living  prizes,  and  to  dine  on  fresh  game  at  a 
merely  nominal  cost.  Needless  to  say,  you  never  hit 
that  mark,  though  you  may  almost  touch  it  with  the 
muzzle  of  the  weapon.  The  secret  perhaps  is  in  the 
rifling,  and  it  may  one  day  put  inventors  in  gunnery  on 
the  track  of  that  art  of  firing  round  a  corner  which  is 
their  philosopher's  stone.  The  animals  know,  by  long 
experience,  that  the  vicissitudes  of  the  day  involve  no 
mischance  to  them,  and  that  they  will  invariably  sleep 
in  their  beds  at  night  instead  of  stewing  in  the />o^  at( 
feu  of  the  citizen.  They  gulp  and  nibble  and  chew, 
therefore,  with  the  full  assurance  of  a  natural  span  of 
life.  Old  age  and  gray  hairs  overtake  them  in  this 
honorable  service,  and  the  returning  traveler  may  rec- 
ognize them  after  long  intervals,  during  which  things 
of  moment  ha\e  happened  in  the  world. 

If  you  are  for  sport  more  worthy  of  the  name,  though 
still  without  the  fatigue  of  personal  exertion,  you  may 
have  even  that  at  the  fair.  There  are  the  wrestling- 
booths,  where  real  work  is  done  by  brawnv  cham])ions 
whose  trade  is  that  of  the  strong  man.      It  is  a  sight  for 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

an  impressionist  painter  —  the  great  dingy  tent  with 
its  dim  lights,  the  throng  of  onlookers,  open-mouthed, 
not  so  much  with  wonder  as  with  a  mocking  chaff  which 
is  often  the  perfection  of  gutter-wit,  the  snorting  pair 
in  the  midst  pawing  each  other  for  the  grip.  Some- 
times fashion  takes  a  turn  in  this  direction,  and  the 
smartest  sets  of  our  Romans  of  the  decadence  drive 
down  after  dinner  to  look  on.  This  supplies  a  needful 
contrast.  The  little  Twelfth-cake  figures  of  the  dandies, 
men  and  women,  in  their  finery,  stand  out  in  sharp  re- 
lief against  the  laboring  champions  in  the  ring,  and  the 
ragamuffins  of  the  barrier  in  the  cheap  seats.  An  inde- 
scribable repulsion  of  feeling  is  the  effect  of  the  whole 
scene.  It  is  due,  I  think,  to  a  sense  of  the  difference 
between  the  ease  of  the  onlooker  and  the  little  ease  of 
the  performer.  When  two  struggle  alone,  it  is  some- 
thing between  the  two,  and  there  an  end.  Each  does 
his  best  and  his  worst.  When  a  third  comes  merely 
to  gaze  for  his  pleasure,  our  disgust  begins.  You  can 
hardly  watch  a  cat  worrying  a  mouse  without  an  uneasy 
feeling  that,  as  one  overmuch  on  the  safe  side,  you  are 
a  bit  of  a  coward. 

These  visits  of  fashion  to  the  wrestling-booths  will, 
I  think,  be  quoted  against  us,  with  the  bull-fights  of 
far  more  serious  import,  when  the  time  comes  to  write 
the  history  of  our  decline  and  fall.  I  knew  a  little  girl 
who,  once,  without  seeing  the  struggle  inside  the 
booths,  heard  the  champions  announcing  outside  that 
they  were  about  to  stake  their  whole  fortune  on  the 
issue.  She  waited  spellbound  for  that  issue,  until 
presently  they  returned,  and  one  declared,  with  heroic 
composure,  that  he  had  lost  the  savings  of  a  lifetime. 

15+ 


A    GINGERBREAD    FAIR 


PARISIAN     PASTIMES 

She  ran  home,  emptied  her  money-box,  groped  her  way- 
back  to  the  fair,  amid  the  gHmmering  Hghts  of  closing- 
time,  and  laid  her  hoard  on  the  hip  of  the  ruined  man, 
now  quietly  smoking  his  pipe  with  the  champion  who 
was  supposed  to  have  reduced  him  to  beggary.  The 
story  should  have  its  climax  in  his  tearful  refusal  to 
touch  a  penny  of  her  money,  but  it  has  not.  He  pock- 
eted the  offering,  led  her  to  the  outskirts  of  the  fair,  and 
told  her  to  be  a  good  little  girl  and  run  straight  home. 
Still  it  remains  beautiful  for  all  that. 

Sometimes,  but  not  often,  you  may  see  a  bout  of 
French  boxing  at  the  fair  —  the  savate.  It  is  a  sport 
that  hovers  between  those  lower  reaches  of  the  street 
fight,  which  it  somewhat  disdains,  and  the  higher  one 
of  the  duello,  to  which  it  is  never  admitted.  It  is  taught 
at  the  gymnasiums  as  part  of  the  athletic  course.  It  is 
an  art  of  kicking,  and  it  trains  the  foot  to  take  the  place 
of  the  fist  in  the  personal  encounters  of  the  plebs,  the 
hand  serving  mainly  to  parry.  The  foot  is  a  terrible 
substitute  ;  its  strokes  are  murderous,  especially  when 
none  are  barred.  One  was  barred  in  a  late  encounter 
between  the  leading  French  professional  and  a  British 
boxer.  But  the  French,  or  rather  the  Belgian,  cham- 
pion delivered  it,  all  the  same,  when  he  found  that  he 
was  getting  the  worst  of  the  bout.  His  opponent  was 
supposed  to  be  maimed  for  life.  On  the  other  hand,  to 
judge  by  the  cries  of  the  delighted  crowd,  Fashoda 
was  avenged. 

After  Sedan  there  was  a  great  growth  of  gymnastic 
societies  in  France,  just  as  there  was  in  Germany  after 
Jena.  They  sprang  up  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  with 
the  same  patriotic  ardor  for  physical  training  to  the  end 

157 


OPEN-AIR    DANCKS    ON    THI£    I4TH    OK  JULY 


of  national  regeneration.  They  were  the  first  and  the 
least  offensive  form  of  Deroulede's  patriotic  labors. 
But  the  poor  creature  could  not  keep  politics  out  of 
them,  and  they  languished  in  due  course.  The  mis- 
fortune of  the   French  is  that  their  athletic  exercise  is 

.58 


PARISIAN     PASTIMES 

still  rather  a  system  than  a  growth.  It  has  not  its 
proper  beginning  in  the  playground.  The  playground 
pastimes  are  still  anything  but  what  they  should  be. 
The  larger  boys  often  take  no  part  in  them,  such  as 
they  are,  but  merely  walk  to  and  fro  and  contract  pim- 
ples. The  others  toy  aimlessly  with  a  ball  or  play  at 
"touch."  It  is  formless  amusement,  in  fact,  instead  of 
organized  sport.  There  is  no  time  to  repair  the  omis- 
sion in  later  life. 

There  used  to  be  wild  dancing  at  the  fairs.  There 
is  less  of  it  now,  if  only  because  there  is  less  every- 
where. Dancing,  in  the  cheap  public  halls,  there  still 
is,  all  the  year  round,  but  it  is  more  or  less  professional, 
especially  on  the  part  of  the  men.  These  are  of  a  pariah 
race  which  is  still  lower  than  that  of  their  partners. 
Even  the  student  no  longer  dances  with  conviction  as 
he  used  to  do  when  Murger's  famous  book  was  young. 
He  goes  to  the  prominent  cafe  chantants  of  the  worse 
type,  but  rather  as  an  observer.  The  thing  is  a  little 
too  low  on  gala  days,  and  a  little  too  dull  on  the  others. 
Many  of  the  old  halls  are  now  the  sites  of  stately 
dwelling-houses  in  which  the  citizen  enjoys  the  ameni- 
ties of  a  service  of  w  ater,  of  gas,  and  of  tradesmen  in 
procession  on  the  back  stairs.  The  old  bal  des  cano- 
tiers,  at  the  riverside  resorts,  in  its  old  style,  is  but  a 
memory,  and  not  a  very  savory  one  at  that.  The 
Parisians  have  lost  the  energy  for  this  amusement, 
which  in  its  prime  was  a  strong  rival  to  gymnastics. 
There  are  many  ways  of  taking  exercise,  and  one  is  to 
take  leaps  and  bounds  in  an  atmosphere  of  foul  air  and 
tobacco-smoke.  Self-respect  now  holds  the  better  sort 
back. 

^59 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

In  the  remote  quarters  the  washerwomen  and  the 
laborers  still  have  their  elephantine  revels  to  round  the 
day  of  toil.  In  their  rude  assemblies  you  meet  on  a 
system  of  free  admission,  tempered  by  a  sou  paid  to  the 
master  of  ceremonies  every  time  you  dance.  For  popu- 
lar dancing  of  the  old-fashioned  sort  you  must  wait  for 
the  14th  of  July,  which  marks  the  fall  of  the  Bastille 
and  the  date  of  the  national  fete.  The  complaisant 
municipality  keeps  a  ring  in  the  open  spaces,  and  puts 
up  stands  for  the  musicians.  The  passers-by  join  in, 
and  the  thing  is  real  as  far  as  it  goes.  It  is  the  people 
dancing,  and  this  is  now  the  rarest  of  Paris  sights. 
Even  at  the  great  bal  de  V opera  public  dancing  has 
long  since  become  a  mere  industry.  Our  grandfathers 
and  grandmothers  went  there  to  take  a  part ;  they  now 
go  only  to  take  bo.xes  and  to  look  on.  The  business 
circle  is  peopled  by  the  scum  of  the  boulevard  and  by 
the  male  supers  of  the  Opera,  who  positively  contract 
with  the  management  for  their  attendance  and  their  cos- 
tumes, and  who  undertake  to  forget  themselves  in  cory- 
bantic  revel  at  so  much  an  hour. 

The  parks  and  gardens  of  the  capital  are  the  country 
reduced  to  scale  for  those  who  have  to  take  the  air  on 
the  wrong  side  of  the  fortifications.  The  most  perfect 
miniature  of  this  kind  is  the  Pare  de  Monceaux,  near 
the  Arch,  on  the  side  of  the  wicked  old  Pare  aux  Cerfs. 
There  is  a  little  bit  of  everything,  prairie  and  ruin  and 
flowery  slope,  and  all  in  a  space  that  might  almost  be 
covered  by  a  hat  of  Brobdingnag.  It  is  about  the 
most  exquisite  thing  of  its  kind  in  the  world.  The 
Bois  de  Boulogne  is  known  to  everybody.  This  is  the 
same  thing  on  a  larger  scale,  every  bit  pretty,  every  bit 

160 


THE    FERRIS    WHEEL    IN    PARIS  — A    aUEER    LANDSCAPE 


created,  if  only  by  the  judicious  treatment  of  original 
wild  and  marsh.  It  is  a  keepsake  fairyland  in  which 
nothing  is  left  to  chance,  and  which  has  an  air  of  being 
combed  and  brushed  every  morning,  not  to  say  per- 

i6i 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

fumed  from  the  scent-bottle.  Such  as  it  is,  it  is  the  best 
of  its  kind,  and  both  in  extent  and  cuUivation  it  leaves 
the  London  parks  far  behind.  Its  faults  are  those  of 
its  qualities.  The  French  with  difficulty  apply  to  a 
scene  of  nature  the  precept  implied  in  the  appeal, 
"  Can't  you  leave  it  alone  ?  " 

Even  Fontainebleau  is  laid  out  as  geometrically  as  a 
Paris  arrondissement,  and  though,  happily,  you  cannot 
see  the  plan  for  the  trees,  it  is  a  sad  disenchantment  on 
the  map.  This  people  would  turn  the  very  Yellow- 
stone into  a  promenade,  dotted  all  over  with  chalets  for 
papers,  and  with  kiosks  for  lemonade.  The  Buttes- 
Chaumont,  on  the  northeast  side  of  Paris,  has  been 
tamed  in  the  same  way.  It  was  an  old  quarry  when 
Napoleon  III  took  it  in  hand  and  reduced  it  to  the 
ordered  wildness  of  early  Italian  landscape.  The  rocky 
bits  are  there,  but  clearly  they  have  been  made  with 
hands,  and  all  they  seem  to  want  is  a  saint,  praying 
from  a  missal,  to  complete  the  link  with  civilization. 
They  reverted  to  primitive  savagery  under  the  Com- 
mune ;  for  here  the  fight  was  hottest,  and  there  was  no 
quarter  given  or  received. 

Paris  is  well  provided  with  its  little  oases  of  verdure 
and  flowers.  So  is  London,  but  there  is  this  difference: 
in  the  French  city  all  the  oases  are  free ;  in  the  English 
most  are  reserved  for  the  occupants  of  the  squares. 
The  square  garden  is  obtained  by  the  sacrifice  of  what 
would  otherwise  have  been  the  private  gardens,  and  the 
residents  keep  it  to  themselves.  In  Paris  this  would 
be  impossible.  It  would  be  foreign  to  the  genius  of 
the  people,  and  ridicule  would  kill  the  privilege,  or 
finally  revolution.     Only  a  few  years  ago  we  had  whole 

162 


-m 


AN   EXCURSION    ON   THE   RIVER 


PARISIAN     PASTIMES 

quarters  in  London  closed  to  the  outer  world  by  gates 
and  gate-keepers.  They  were  solemnly  abolished  amid 
rejoicings,  but  the  gardens  of  the  squares  still  remain 
private  property.  One  day  they  will  go  into  the  com- 
mon domain,  as  the  fine  garden  of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields 
has  already  gone,  to  the  huge  benefit  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  adjacent  slums.  The  owners,  many  of  them  law- 
yers who  had  their  offices  round  about,  never  missed  a 
pleasance  which  they  never  used.  But  they  claimed 
handsome  compensation  for  all  that,  and  got  it,  too. 
When  all  London  follows  the  same  example  of  com- 
pulsory renunciation,  with  or  without  damages,  the  me- 
tropolis will  be  the  garden  city  of  the  world.  It  almost 
is  so  now,  thanks  to  the  happy  idea  of  laying  out  the 
old  graveyards  as  pleasure-grounds.  In  this  matter 
the  English  capital,  after  long  lagging  behind  the 
French,  has  now  bettered  the  example.  Already  we 
Londoners  have  music  in  the  parks,  though  it  will  take 
us  some  time  to  reproduce  all  the  essential  features  of  a 
military  concert  in  the  Gardens  of  the  Luxembourg  or 
of  the  Palais  Royal. 

The  French  have  had  a  century's  familiarity  with 
the  conception  that  the  first  duty  of  a  community,  in 
the  distribution  of  the  blessings  of  life,  is  to  itself  as  a 
whole.  Everything  strengthens  this  idea  in  your 
Parisian,  and  it  governs  his  beliefs  with  the  automatic 
action  of  a  truism.  He  expects  the  government  to  do 
all  sorts  of  things  that  are  rarely  regarded  as  obligations 
elsewhere.  It  has  not  only  to  fix  the  date  of  the 
national  holiday,  but  to  provide  the  entertainment.  The 
national  fete,  with  its  free  places  at  the  theaters,  free 
treats  to  the  school-children,  free  illuminations  and  fire- 

165 


PARIS    ()!•      rO-DAV 

works,  is  a  marvel  of  administrative  hospitality.  There 
is  no  sense  of  faxor  in  all  this  on  the  part  of  the  giver, 
but  there  is  a  strong  sense  of  right  on  the  part  of  the 
receiver. 

So  with  the  enjoyment  of  the  public  galleries.  What- 
ever higher  uses  they  may  be  intended  to  serve,  the 
first  care  of  the  government  is  to  make  them  minister 
to  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number.  All 
the  regulations  as  to  hours  and  days  of  opening  and 
general  conditions  of  use  are  framed  to  this  end.  The 
people  like  to  think  that  their  art  treasures  at  the 
Louvre  or  at  the  Luxembourg — their  very  own  —  beat 
all  private  collections  in  the  world,  and  are  managed 
by  the  best  experts,  ever  on  the  lookout  for  new  acc[ui- 
sitions.  Their  sense  of  personal  property  in  the 
"  Mona  Lisa"  or  the  "Belle  Jardiniere,"  in  the  Nike 
of  Samothrace  or  the  Venus  of  Melos,  is  deep  down  in 
them  ;  and  while  they  might  take  off  their  hats  to  these 
masterpieces,  they  would  never  think  of  doing  so  to 
their  own  servants  who  have  them  in  charge.  I  have 
seen  a  milliner's  apprentice  smiling  contemptuously  at 
the  waist  of  the  last-named  lady,  left  as  it  is  without 
the  correction  of  the  corset.  It  was  bad  taste,  no  doubt, 
but  still  it  showed  the  saving  sense  of  one's  right  to 
laugh  as  one  likes  at  one's  own.  The  English  visitor 
to  the  National  Gallery  still  finds  it  hard  to  divest  him- 
self of  a  sense  of  personal  obligation  to  the  policeman. 


i66 


THE    ESPLANADE   OF  THE   INVALIDES,    FROM   THE   NEW 
ALEXANDER    III    BRIDGE    AT   SUNSET 


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IBItot'V 


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IK '" 

1 

i^ 


THK    LIFE    OF    THE    BOULEVARDS 


THE  very  paving-stones  of  great  cities  might 
sometimes  cry  out,  "  Let  us  have  peace." 
Some  of  them  may  well  complain  that  the  foot 
of  man  makes  too  short  work  of  them,  considering  the 
time  and  trouble  it  took  them  to  grow.  Those  of  the 
boule\ard  are  surely  entitled  to  this  grievance,  as  they 
are  ground  to  premature  dust  by  an  army  everlastingly 
on  the  march.  It  is  a  stage  army,  for  it  turns  on  its 
steps,  to  repeat  the  trick  of  entrance  and  exit  half  a 
dozen  times  a  day.  The  entrance,  I  may  observe  as 
a  stage  direction,  is  by  the  Rue  Royalc  ;  the  exit  very 
little  higher  than  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens.  Beyond 
that  point  the  long  line  is  simply  a  place  of  transit 
on  lawful  business,  like  any  other  street.  The  short 
stretch  between  the  Madeleine  and  the  Rue  Richelieu 
forms  the  Grand  Boulevard  ancient  of  days. 

When  the  New  Caledonian  of  the  future  seeks  his 
arch  of  the  opera-house  to  sketch  the  ruins  of  the 
Madeleine,  he  will  not  fail  to  observe  that  the  asphalt 
here  is  ground  to  a  finer  surface  than  elsewhere.  Its 
air  of  fatigue  will  be  as  eloquent  of  a  too  busy  past  as 

171 


PARIS    OF    1'()-DAY 

the  rutted  ways  of  Rome.  The  eustuni  of  a<^^es,  since 
these  sites  ceased  to  be  open  country,  or  open  ditch, 
just  beyond  the  city  wall,  has  sent  the  people  here  for 
news  and  gossip  every  day.  Once  they  came  for  fresh 
air  as  well ;  and  havint^  contracted  the  habit,  they  are 
loath  to  part  with  it,  though  now  they  are  naturally 
rationed  in  that  commodity  like  other  inhabitants  of 
walled  cities.  They  seldom,  however,  fail  to  get  a 
good  blow  of  the  winds  of  the  spirit.  The  boulevard 
is  the  source  or  the  distributing  center  of  all  the  flitting 
fancies  of  France.  You  come  here  m  the  daytime  for 
the  sensation  of  the  day.  You  get  it  of  a  surety,  what- 
ever else  you  may  miss ;  and  while  you  enjoy  it,  hot 
and  hot,  truth  seems  but  a  spoil-sport.  The  art  of  life 
is,  after  all,  but  an  art  of  impressions  ;  and  this  impres- 
sion, while  it  lasts,  is  sure  to  be  to  your  taste.  The 
boulevard  asks  no  more.  There  \\ill  be  something 
new  to-morrow,  and  what  you  have  is  sufficient  unto 
the  day. 

When  the  boulevard  ends,  and  the  mere  boulevards 
begin,  the  thing  soon  rights  itself.  At  Poissoniere,  if 
you  go  so  far,  you  take  your  sensation  for  little  more 
than  it  is  worth.  By  the  time  you  have  reached  Bonne 
Nouvelle,  you  are  for  crying,  "What's  in  a  name?" 
Yet  these  thoroughfares,  after  all,  are  in  the  grand  line, 
and  for  many  of  the  humbler  sort  they  have  something 
of  its  subtle  charm.  The  countless  boulevards  in  other 
quarters  have  no  such  relation  to  the  pulsing  life  of  the 
city.  There  are  boulevards  of  communication,  boule- 
vards of  industry,  boulevards  of  silence,  meditation,  and 
prayer.  Be  sure,  therefore,  to  see  that  you  get  the 
right  label  when  you  make  your  choice.     Without  this, 

172 


THE    LIFE    OF    THE    liOULEVARDS 

indeed,  you  may  know  the  boulevard  by  the  composi- 
tion of  its  crowds.  Their  appointed  hour  is  the  hour 
of  absinthe,  within  measurable  distance  of  the  time  for 
dinner.  They  are  sleek  and  stall-fed,  and  they  look 
forward  to  their  meal  with  a  sure  and  certain  hope. 
With  some,  not  with  many,  the  whole  day  has  been 
little  more  than  a  preparation  for  this  great  act  of  life. 
I  knew  one  —  still  to  narrow  it  down  to  exceptions  that 
by  no  means  prove  the  rule — with  whom  the  absinthe 
was  only  a  final  stage  of  the  treatment  for  appetite. 
Before  that  came  the  douche.  When  a  lusty  fellow- 
had  jjumped  on  him,  as  with  strokes  of  a  whip  of  cold 
water,  to  urge  the  sluggish  blood  into  a  trot,  he  was 
driven  to  the  cafe  for  the  inward  application.  Then 
the  green  corrosive  gnawed  him  into  hunger,  and  he 
sought  his  club  to  do  justice  to  its  cook,  if  not  exactly 
to  his  Maker. 

The  club,  it  must  be  owned,  is  the  enemy  of  the 
boulevard,  in  being  the  enemy  of  its  cafes  and  of  its 
restaurants.  At  the  beginning  of  things  it  was  these 
institutions  or  nothing  if  you  wanted  to  exchange  a 
word  with  your  shopmates  in  the  work  of  life,  or  to 
take  bite  and  sup  in  their  company.  This  has  passed. 
The  club  cuisine  gives  points  to  the  cuisine  of  the  res- 
taurant. The  club  company  is  necessarily  more  select 
than  any  cafe  of  artists,  cafe  of  poets,  or  what  not,  sub- 
ject to  the  intrusion  of  the  outsider.  The  club,  too,  has 
its  own  town-talk ;  and  since  this  is  but  the  gossip  of 
the  boulevard,  with  some  improvement  in  the  inflections, 
it  gives  members  all  they  want.  But  what  the  boulevard 
loses  in  this  way  it  gains  in  many  another,  and  its  masses 
of  mere  human  beings  make  a  society  of  their  own. 

^7Z 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

Yet  the  Parisian  cUjcthier  an  restaurant  is  still  an 
institution.  I  know  of  nothing  better  in  the  world.  In 
the  general  competition  among  nations  in  the  arts  of 
life,  France  has  fixed  the  form  for  this  repast,  if  we 
call  it  by  its  proper  name  of  lunch.  There  are,  indeed, 
midday  meals  of  every  variety,  all  o\er  the  planet,  for 
those  who  are  able  to  get  them ;  but  the  I\'irisian 
dejeuner  is  the  only  realized  ideal.  The  breakfasts  of 
the  Autocrat  were  but  the  ideal ;  he  probably  li\ed  on  a 
cracker,  in  the  interest  of  his  splendid  conversational 
dreams.  The  luncheons  of  the  mighty  in  London 
society  are  the  nearest  English  approach  to  the  realiza- 
tion. What  there  is  of  light  and  grace  about  them  is 
French  by  origin  or  by  suggestion.  The  delicate 
courses  succeed  one  another  with  ever  richer  promise 
to  the  eye  than  to  the  palate,  and  \ki<i  petit  verre  seems 
to  close  the  vista  with  flowers. 

In  the  Champs-Elysees  you  may  breakfast  under 
the  trees,  with  manufactured  surroundings  of  nature 
which,  for  this  purpose,  are  an  improvement  on  the 
real  article.  The  tame  sparrows  are  probably  on  the 
staff  of  the  establishment,  but  they  please.  Yet,  for 
profit  and  pleasure,  as  for  scenery  of  another  kind,  the 
rendezvous  may  still  be  the  boulevard.  The  main 
things  are  ever  the  same  —  lightness  and  brightness, 
the  former  extending  from  the  mode  of  service  to  the 
thing  served.  There  is  nothing  out  of  the  way  in  the 
cjuality  of  the  viands.  The  Paris  market  is  ill  supplied 
with  fish  from  the  great  deep,  and  the  roasts  of  the 
Paris  kitchen  sometimes  produce  a  longing  for  home 
that  is  not  purely  patriotic.  Yet  the  French  cook 
rarely  fails  to  hold  you  with  the  magic  of  his  kick- 

174 


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bi 


4 


THE   GREHN    HOUR  ("  L'HF.URE   VERTE ■■)-HIVE   O'CLOCK 
AT   A    BOULEVARD   CAFE 


THE    LIFE    OF    THE    BOULEVARDS 

shaws ;  and  if  you  choose  your  restaurant  with  judg- 
ment you  will  find  the  fare  quite  good  enough  for 
human  nature's  daily  food.  The  one  thing  needful  is 
to  approach  the  table  in  the  right  spirit,  or  all  the 
magic  goes  for  naught.  That  spirit  is  the  spirit  of  ex- 
pectation, of  longing,  of  desire  for  the  good  things  of 
the  body,  and  the  good  humor  which  is  its  natural 
expression.  The  doctors  say  that  this  lickerishness  is 
an  important  part  of  the  business  of  eating,  as  the 
mouth  that  honestly  waters  for  its  morsel  lightens 
the  labor  of  the  digestive  juices. 

The  Frenchman  makes  no  apology  for  enjoying  his 
victual,  and  he  knows  nothing  of  the  rather  artificial 
humility  of  our  forms  of  grace  before  meat.  He  does 
not  pray  that  the  food  may  be  sanctified  to  his  use  and 
to  the  most  exalted  service.  It  is  enough  for  him  to 
have  it  agreeable  to  his  palate.  So  he  avoids  the 
hypocrisy  exposed  in  the  rebuke  of  Dr.  Johnson's  wife: 
"  Where  is  the  use,  Mr.  Johnson,  of  returning  thanks 
for  a  dish  which,  in  another  minute,  you  will  declare  is 
unfit  for  a  dog?"  He  holds,  the  incorrigible  pagan, 
that  the  gratifications  of  sense  are  as  legitimate  as  all 
others,  and  that  a  filet  Chateaubriand  is  quite  as  much 
of  an  absolute  good  as  the  virtue  of  the  Socratic  sys- 
tem. Good  things  to  eat,  beautiful  things  to  look  at, 
especially  women,  the  quickening  appeals  of  music, 
oratory,  conversation,  all  these  are  main  parts  of  his 
scheme  of  life. 

The  very  scavenger  in  his  gargote  will  smack  his 
lips  over  a  glass  of  wine  limed  with  plaster  of  Paris, 
if  he  can  find  no  better.  The  moral  it  carries,  as  it 
goes  down,  is  not  exactly  thankfulness  for  the  kindly 

177 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

fruits  of  the  earth.  He  feels  only  that  it  is  good  to  be 
alive;  or,  to  put  it  inside  out,  that  "  when  one  dies  it  is 
for  a  long  time."      In  rustic  wine-shops,  here  and  there, 


A    FIRST-CLASS    FUNERAL 


the  motto  may  still  be  read  beneath  a  faded  lithograph 
wherein  three  citizens  of  the  time  of  Louis  Philippe 
touch  glasses  in  an  arbor  in  spring.  They  are  all  as 
dead  now  as  lithogra])hy  itself,  but,  while  they  had 
their  chance,  they  made   the   cannikin   clink.      It  was 

178 


THK     LIFE    OF    THE    BOULEVARDS 

their  national  application  of  the  text,  "  Let  us  eat  and 
drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  The  compassion  of 
these  people  for  those  who  devote  their  entire  thought 
to  riches  and  the  toil  of  ambition  might  make  some  of 
us  pause. 

This  is  the  French  philosophy  of  the  French  table  — 
of  the  breakfast-table  especially.  I  do  not  criticize,  of 
course ;  I  only  try  to  explain.  Its  hours  are  times 
of  truce  in  the  more  or  less  meaningless  battle  of  life, 
wherein  both  sides  try  to  find  out  what  it  is  all  about, 
and  to  penetrate  to  the  real  purpose  of  Renan's  "prom- 
enade through  the  Real."  All  is  in  harmony.  The  very 
waiters  are  in  keeping  with  this  kindly  and  tolerant 
scheme.  In  their  unpretentious  jackets  and  aprons 
and  slippers,  in  their  civility,  and  readiness  to  give 
counsel  on  the  bill  of  fare,  each  of  them  is  a  humble 
friend  of  man.  No  such  character  is  to  be  attributed 
at  sight  to  the  creatures  of  the  same  species  in  foreign 
restaurants,  uniformed  like  undertakers,  and  obtruding 
dress-coats  on  you  in  the  garish  day.  Life  advances 
pleasantly,  with  such  aids,  in  its  most  serious  affairs. 
Merchants  breakfast  over  bargains,  lawyers  over  cases, 
lovers  over  meetings.  Blessed  are  these  breakfasters, — 
while  they  breakfast, — though  they  may  have  to  re- 
member, before  and  after,  that  they  are  one  of  the  great 
sad  races  of  mankind.  Joyous  is  their  chatter  of  irre- 
sponsible frivolity,  tempered  by  wit ;  joyous  their  brag, 
untrammeled  by  the  modesty  which  they  appraise  as  a 
mean  \\ay  of  seeking  condonation  for  success.  All  is 
flowing  and  gracious  as  the  courtesy  of  kings.  The 
art  of  its  flow  is  simply  an  art  of  thinking  aloud.  The 
dullest  of  us  is  always  thinking  of  something,  if  onl\- 

179 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

of  what  he  ought  to  think  about.  Let  him  but  think  in 
spoken  words,  and  he  has  the  wherewithal  for  the  com- 
panionship of  the  table.  Their  strong  point  is  the 
generous  fullness  with  which  they  give  themselves 
away  to  the  adversary  by  saying  just  what  comes  into 
their  heads.  But  it  is  less  generous  than  it  seems,  for 
they  know  that  no  one  is  in  ambush  at  breakfast- 
time. 

The  meal  over,  there  is  still  the  balance  of  the  day, 
and  what  is  to  be  done  with  it?  This  difficulty  is  the 
bane  of  breakfast  for  the  idler.  Let  us  consider,  then, 
only  the  few — a  very  few — in  Paris  who  ha^'e  no 
business  to  resume.  The  break-up  may  be  for  a  stroll 
and  a  peep  at  the  shops.  An  art-shop  will  do  to  begin 
with,  for  this  will  best  keep  us  in  touch  with  that  life  of 
old  Rome  of  which  you  have  the  perpetual  suggestion 
in  all  that  passes  here.  A  famous  shop  for  bronzes 
will  do  as  the  highest  possible  of  its  kind  in  our  time, 
since  no  importations  from  Athens  can  now  put  the 
native  work  to  shame.  Its  exquisitely  rendered  types 
of  the  humanity  of  all  the  ages  keep  us  true  to  the 
mood  of  the  hour.  We  are  on  a  higher  table-land  of 
dream  than  the  one  we  have  just  left,  amid  these 
nymphs  and  fauns,  troubadours  and  men-at-arms,  who 
seem  to  assure  us  upon  their  sacred  honor  that  there  is 
nothing  like  living  for  the  splendid  shows  of  things. 
They  may  be  right  or  wrong,  but  the  mastery  of  art 
with  which  they  are  set  before  us  makes  it  exceedingly 
hard  to  contradict  them.  Every  form  of  the  nobler 
animal  life  lives,  breathes,  moves,  in  the  still,  reposeful 
metal.  The  crouching  tigers  on  the  spring  might  win 
a  roar  of  recognition  from  the  real  article,  as,  according 

i8o 


THE    LIFE    OF    THE    BOULEVARDS 

to  Haydon,  a  horse  of  the  Elgin  Marbles  won  a  neigh 
of  fraternity  from  an  English  thoroughbred.  The  lions 
stalking  with  the  stride  of  Artemis,  the  sun-affronting 
eagles,  are  manifestly  lords  of  earth  and  air. 

The  Frenchman's  eye  for  character  in  form  is  unfail- 
ing, as  though  he  had  in  him  the  potentiality  of  all  the 
moods  and  passions  of  animate  life.  And  it  is  the  same 
with  his  feeling  for  nature  at  large,  as  you  may  see 
when  you  leave  this  shop  for  a  picture-dealer's.  It  is 
the  other  part  of  his  intense,  sympathetic  delight  in  the 
whole  visible,  tangible  world,  the  world  of  men  and 
women,  of  plains  and  trees  and  flowers.  You  are  as 
Prospero  s  band,  dazzled  by  the  sheer  beauty  of  the 
brave  creatures  that  have  just  swum  into  your  ken. 
The  demonstration  stops  short  at  their  braveries,  and 
is  in  no  wise  concerned  to  weight  itself  with  a  moral. 

The  little  gems  in  oil  and  water-color  are  conceiva- 
ble altar-pieces  of  a  new  religion  —  a  religion  for  men 
of  taste,  and  that  category  perhaps  includes  the  largest 
of  the  dissenting  bodies  here.  The  very  bonnets  in  a 
neighboring  shop  have  their  modest  use  in  the  same 
service.  In  their  present  state  of  unsoiled  perfection 
they  look  as  if  they  could  do  no  wrong.  So  of  the 
trailed  skirts  of  the  dress-shops  ;  of  the  exquisite  fancies 
in  the  windows  of  the  jewelers.  And  so  of  the  regi- 
ment that  passes,  clarion  in  front,  going  now  only  to  its 
barracks,  perhaps  in  the  Place  de  la  Republique,  but 
beyond  that  to  deeds  and  to  fortunes  determinable  by 
the  turning  of  a  hair. 

What  a  world  of  the  senses,  if  not  exactly  what  a 
world  of  sense  !  The  stately  cortege  of  the  poinpcs 
fimcbrcs,  that  was  for  the  earlier  part  of  the  day.  per- 

i8i 


PARIS    Ol"     1()-UAY 

haps  should  have  come  at  this  hour  to  remind  us  that 
other  things  pass  besides  the  regiment  and  the  applaud- 
ing crowd.  But  with  these  invincible  sight-seers  that 
would  have  been  only  one  more  of  the  shows  of  life. 
"  So  may  I  live  as  to  merit  a  great  public  funeral," 
cried  Claretie  one  day,  in  a  mood  of  high  resolve. 
Victor  Hugo  ordained  by  will  a  pauper's  shell  for  his 
remains.  He  forgot  to  forbid  them  to  set  his  cata- 
falque under  the  Arc  de  Triomphe,  and  to  call  out  the 
horse  and  foot  of  the  garrison  of  Paris  to  carry  him  to 
his  grave.  So  they  did  it  —  with  apologies  to  his  not 
implacable  shade. 

The  boulevard  at  night  is  a  very  different  affair. 
The  later  the  better.  Paris,  though  the  most  northerly, 
is  still  one  of  the  Latin  cities,  and  the  Latin  cities  sit 
up  late.  The  farther  south  the  more  incorrigible.  At 
Madrid  the  newsboys  find  it  worth  their  while  to  cry 
the  papers  till  one  in  the  morning.  The  best  of  the 
night  hours,  for  Paris,  is  the  hour  after  the  play.  The 
audiences  pour  into  the  cafes  to  celebrate  with  mild 
refreshment  their  recovery  of  the  atmosphere.  It  is 
the  hour  of  high  change  for  the  affairs  of  the  boule- 
vard. A  haze  of  illuminating  fire  falls  on  a  haze  of 
dust  rising  from  the  vexed  pavement,  and,  if  one  may 
put  it  so,  on  a  haze  of  sound.  The  huge  multitude 
has  come  out  to  see  itself  That  is  the  spectacle ;  just 
that  and  nothing  more.  The  settled  swarm  under  the 
awnings  of  the  cafes — twenty  deep,  if  you  carry  your 
eye  to  the  indoor  recesses — seem  to  pass  the  moving 
swarm  in  review.  The  pavement,  in  like  manner,  sur- 
veys the  cafes  on  one  side,  and  on  the  other  the  busy 
road.     It  is  a  promenade  of  curiosity  in  which,  no  mat- 

182 


THE   NOON    MEAL   AT   A    RESTAURANT 


THE    LIFE    OF    THE    BOULEVARDS 

ter  how  often  you  have  seen  it,  you  are  sure  of  your 
reward.  Perhaps  the  seated  crowd  has  the  best  of  it. 
The  others  seem  to  ghde  past  Hke  so  many  figures  of 
the  new-fashioned  scheme  for  painless  locomotion.  In 
this,  as  you  remember,  a  sidewalk  on  wheels  does  all 
the  work,  and  the  wayfarer  has  only  to  keep  still  to  find 
himself  at  his  journey's  end.  The  whole  scene  is  a 
good  deal  better  than  the  play  the  spectators  have  just 
left.  And  there  is  nothing  to  grumble  at  in  the  price 
of  the  seats — a  bock  or  a  sherry  cobbler  not  more  than 
three  hundred  per  cent,  above  cost  price. 

Many  old  stagers  come  here,  night  after  night,  as 
though  to  stock  their  imagination  with  the  stuff  of 
which  they  hope  to  make  their  dreams.  It  at  once 
quickens  and  soothes,  with  a  sense  of  Paris  as  the  hub 
of  the  universe  and  the  glory  of  the  world.  And  glory 
of  a  kind  it  is  in  good  faith.  The  whole  broad  space 
between  the  two  sides  of  the  way  is  filled  with  life  and 
movement.  In  the  stretch  betw^een  curb  and  curb  you 
have  hundreds  of  light  ramshackle  cabs  rolling  home 
with  their  freight  of  lovers  from  the  Bois,  or  their 
heavier  burden  of  "  blouses,"  packed  six  deep,  and  vocal 
with  the  message  of  the  music-halls.  The  "victoria" 
is  the  gondola  of  Paris,  with  a  better  title,  perhaps, 
than  the  hansom  has  to  being  the  gondola  of  London. 
Its  long  nightly  procession  to  the  Cascade,  thousands 
strong,  is  best  seen  in  the  Champs-Elysees,  all  one 
side  of  the  road  alive  with  dancing  light  from  the  front 
lamps.  As  for  the  occupants,  the  vehicle  is  roofless,  so 
they  have  nothing  between  them  and  the  stars.  The 
passing  regiment  is  not  wanting,  even  at  this  late 
hour,  as  the  smart  municipal  guards  return  to  barracks 

i8^ 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

from  their  service  of  order  at  the  places  of  pubhc 
resort.  More  rarely,  at  this  time,  you  may  see  a  stray 
dragoon  passing  from  late  duty  at  one  of  the  minis- 
tries to  the  palace  of  the  President.  But  this  is  only 
for  emergencies.  The  daytime  is  the  Ijest  for  these 
huge  military  postmen,  who  fetch  and  carry  as  a  regu- 
lar thing  between  the  dc])artmcnts,  and  whose  pouches 
are  sometimes  laden  with  nothing  more  important 
than  a  three-cornered  note  bidding  an  opera-dancer 
to  lunch. 

But  the  sidewalk  is,  after  all,  the  distinctive  sight  of 
the  boulevard.  It  is  much  more  than  all  Paris  in  its 
best-known  types,  and  it  might  pass  for  all  France,  or, 
for  that  matter,  all  the  world.  The  small  shopkeeper — 
whose  person,  as  a  rule,  has  shrunk  to  the  fit  of  his 
premises  —  has  come  out  with  his  wife  to  take  the  air. 
Their  little  "  magazine  of  novelties "  in  the  haber- 
dashery line  has  so  far  yielded  in  its  strife  with  the 
temple  of  Janus  as  to  close  at  eleven  o'clock.  Their 
stroll  tends  to  relieve  an  otherwise  intolerable  tedium 
of  existence  with  a  sense  of  the  larger  movement  of 
life.  The  flamboyant  provincials  from  Normandy  or 
from  the  country  of  Tartarin  have  just  been  disgorged 
by  an  excursion-train.  These,  and  the  soldiers  on  leave 
from  distant  garrisons,  have  come  up  for  a  bath  of  light 
in  this  all-abounding  flame.  The  unhealthy-looking 
lads,  bourgeoning  with  stray  hairs  and  pimples,  have 
evidently  given  maternal  vigilance  the  slip.  The  stu- 
dents from  the  Quarter  have  left  a  like  scene  on  the 
Boulevard  "Mich"  for  the  richer  variety  of  this  one. 
The  bloused  workmen  with  their  wives,  and  here  and 
there,  even  at  this  late  hour,  with  their  children  as  well, 

i86 


THE    LIFE    OF     IHE     BOULEVARDS 

give  the  note  of  gravity  and  purpose,  and  correct  the 
cruder  frivolities  of  the  scene.  Yet,  in  the  main,  it  is 
quite  a  "respectable"  crowd,  and  the  revelers  are  still 
its  minority. 

The  French  have  so  much  the  sense  of  character  and 
the  sense  of  spectacle  that  they  are  capable,  at  need,  of 
an  entire  disinterestedness  on  the  moral  side  in  regard 
to  the  shows  of  things.  Our  pair  from  the  magazine 
of  novelties  take  the  moral  judgment  for  granted,  and 
come  here  just  for  the  stimulus  of  the  thought  that  Paris 
is  a  fine  feast  for  the  eye.  The  wife,  no  doubt,  has  her 
thoughts  as  she  sees  some  of  the  women  in  the  crowd. 
But  these  thoughts  permit  her  to  feel  that  she  has  her 
reward  in  self-respect  for  the  weariness  of  trying  to 
save  for  old  age  on  the  fractional  profits  of  the  sale  of 
ha'p'orths  of  thread.  The  little  man  himself  may  make 
the  like  improving  reflections  as  he  catches  sight  of  the 
gray-headed  old  lounger  who  is  at  his  perch  in  the  cor- 
ner when  he  ought  to  be  in  bed.  There  was  a  sort  of 
parting  of  the  ways,  perhaps,  when  our  mercer  repented 
of  his  leadership  of  the  dance  at  vanished^  Valentino, 
and  gave  security  for  future  good  behavior  by  taking 
the  wife  and  the  shop. 

The  baser  crowd  is  not  edifying.  There  are  the  cafe 
scavengers,  who  live  by  picking  up  the  ends  of  cigars 
and  cigarettes,  to  be  worked  up  again  into  a  sort  of 
resurrection  pic  for  the  refreshment  of  poor  smokers. 
Terrible  creatures  some  of  these  —  lean,  unwashed, 
slouching,  saturnine,  with  murder  as  an  occasional  al- 
ternative to  their  industries  of  poverty  or  shame.  The 
opportunity  comes  when  they  meet  a  drunken  carter 
reeling  home  at  night  by  one  of  the  bridges.     Then 

187 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

the  silent  knife  does  its  work,  and  the  rifled  body  is 
tossed  into  the  water  to  vanish  forever,  save  for  the 
brief  interval  of  its  reappearance  at  the  morgue.  There 
is  a  more  sickening  \'illainy  in  these  lower  types  of 
Paris  than  in  the  London  rough  of  the  same  calling. 
He  kills  with  violence,  but  without  finesse,  and  he  is 
wicked  with  his  appetites  rather  than  with  his  reason. 
He  wants  his  toke  and  his  beer,  and  he  robs  or,  at  need, 
slays  to  get  them.  His  French  colleague  affects  the 
niceties  of  the  band  and  the  password,  and  lays  out  his 
booty  in  diversions  of  infamy  in  which  mere  tipple  has 
but  a  small  share.  Not  unfrequcntly  he  is  quite  a 
philosopher  in  his  way.  When  Ravachol  was  not 
murdering  solitary  misers  for  their  hoards,  or  breaking 
open  graves  for  trinkets,  he  used  to  spout  at  public 
meetings  on  the  wrongs  of  the  proletariat;  and,  at  the 
end,  he  raised  the  "  Carmagnole  "  as  his  death-song, 
though,  it  must  be  owned,  in  a  cracked  voice,  as  he 
danced  his  way  to  the  guillotine. 

The  very  paralytic  who  prowls  the  boulevard  with 
his  hand  twisted  by  art  or  nature  into  a  cup  for  alms 
has  his  social  theory.  It  is  in  the  character  of  the  race. 
They  are  constructive  artists  even  in  their  vices,  and 
they  like  to  feel  that  ^\•hat  they  are  doing  is  a  thing  that 
admits  of  being  done  with  an  air.  The  boulevard  is 
the  happy  hunting-ground  of  these  castaways,  but,  be- 
yond it,  each  one  has  a  boulevard  of  his  own.  Here, 
on  off  days,  he  too  sits  and  sips  with  his  mates,  reads 
his  paper,  and  chucks  his  forlorn  Thais  under  the  chin. 
In  times  of  trouble  they  all  descend  upon  the  boulevard, 
and  play  sad  havoc  with  the  furniture  of  existing  con- 
stitutions in  the  brief  interval  between  the  scamper  of 

188 


A    BOULEVARD    ART-SHOP 


THE     I.IFK    OF    THK    BOULEVARDS 

the  policemen  and  the  arrival  of  the  guard.  During 
the  troubles  at  "Fort  Chabrol,"  in  the  summer  of  1899, 
they  sacked  a  church  and  defiled  its  altars  under  the 
stimulus  of  a  liberal  allowance  in  promotion-money  by 
the  factions  interested  in  the  proceeding.  They  work 
by  the  job,  and  the  secret  agents  of  the  Orleanist  Pre- 
tender know  where  they  are  to  be  found  when  the  time 
has  come  to  demonstrate  the  need  of  a  monarchical 
savior  of  society. 

The  newspaper-hawker  is  sometimes  of  their  corpora- 
tion, and  he  is  always  an  essential  figure  of  the  boule- 
vard. This  crowd  that  has  come  out  for  the  new  thing 
must  be  fed  with  it,  especially  at  night,  when  its  mind 
is  most  free  for  impressions.  The  busy  couriers  shout- 
ing their  wares  in  cavernous  head  voice  are  but  one 
sign  of  the  insistence  of  the  demand.  The  kiosk  is, 
above  all  things,  a  Parisian  institution,  gorged  as  it  is 
to  overflowing  with  flying  sheets  and  flying  fancies 
from  every  part  of  the  planet,  from  every  corner  of  the 
human  mind,  even  the  foulest.  Its  budgets  of  papers 
hang  from  the  pointed  roof,  obscure  the  windows,  over- 
flow from  the  narrow  ledge  of  the  half-door  into  sup- 
plementary counters  outside.  They  are  of  all  sorts  — 
the  academic  "  Debats,"  the  solid  and  serious  "  Temps," 
the  wild  "  Libre  Parole,"  with  its  sensational  shriek 
of  the  hour  against  the  Protestants  or  against  the 
Jews. 

The  kiosk  is  a  picture-gallery  as  well  as  a  library,  its 
whole  surface  exhibiting  a  very  rash  of  illustration,  oc- 
casionally symptomatic  of  deep-seated  disease.  Here, 
in  colored  lithograph,  the)'  murder  a  w^oman,  and  the 
red  stream  trickles  from  the  knife  driven  to  the  hilt  in 

191 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

her  breast.  The  mincing  misses  of  the  fashion  sheets 
are  close  by.  The  society  journals  spread  themselves 
in    large    cartoons    of   ball    and    bathing-place.       The 


THE   PASSING    REGIMENT — A    SCENE    IN    THE    PLACE    DE   LA    Rhl'lBIlQUK 

"Amusing  Journal" — save  the  mark! — displays  wares 
of  a  kind  to  suggest  that,  at  last,  the  very  Yahoos 
have  learned  to  read.  The  "  almanacs  "  of  the  different 
orders  touch  every  social  interest  from  religion  to  de- 


192 


THE    LIFE    OF    THE    BOULEVARDS 

bauchery.  Add  to  this  American  and  English  papers, 
with  Russian,  German,  Spanish,  Italian,  and  Levantine, 
the  latest  pamphlets  for  and  against  everything  in  church 
and  state,  the  time-tables  of  the  railways,  the  quota- 
tions of  the  Bourse,  and  you  have  a  hurly-burly  of 
imaginative  suggestion  amid  which  the  old  woman 
who  sits  wedged  among  these  explosive  forces,  with 
her  feet  on  a  brazier,  is  serviceable  as  a  fixed  point. 

The  midnight  boulevard  is  a  sort  of  first  "  finish  " 
for  most  of  the  pleasures  of  the  town.  You  come  here 
for  the  wind-up,  if  you  are  for  keeping  within  the  limits 
of  discretion.  So,  among  the  many  roads  leading  this 
way,  is  the  Avenue  of  the  Champs- Ely  sees.  These 
lamp-lit  gardens  begin  to  pale  their  fires  as  the  night 
wears  on.  Very  pretty  they  are  when  the  lights  are  in 
the  fullness  of  their  mellowed  blaze,  with  the  screen  of 
foliage  to  soften  them  still  more  into  a  suggestion  of 
tender  mystery.  I  think  those  who  see  them  through 
the  screen,  that  is  to  say,  from  the  outside,  have  the 
best  of  it.  Within,  these  cafes  have  the  hardness  of  a 
cage  of  performing  birds  that  sing  by  command.  Still 
the  stranger  must  not  pass  them  by.  Their  songs  are 
brief  chronicles  of  the  time,  studies  of  manners,  signs 
of  the  point  of  view.  Their  singers  are  like  such 
singers  everywhere,  never  less  to  be  mistaken  for  their 
betters  than  when  they  are  most  carefulh'  dressed  for 
the  [)art;  but  the  business  of  these  artists  is  the  humor 
of  the  moment,  and  their  tuneful  truisms  are  fresh  from 
the  surface  of  the  popular  mind.  It  is  not  that  what 
they  sing  to-day  Paris  does  to-morrow.  But  you  may 
put  it  the  other  way :  they  would  not  sing  it  if  Paris 
had   not  done  something  of  the  sort  yesterday.      So, 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

one  of  them,  figuring  as  an  ex-cabman,  tells  us  in 
somewhat  interminable  verse  that  he  has  now  become 
the  driver  of  a  motor-car.  And  another  —  lliis  time  a 
woman  —  warbles  the  fascinations  of  the  little  work-girl 
of  the  capital  —  her  smile,  her  mocking  air. 

The  newcomer,  who  appears  in  the  character  of  the 
poor  workman,  is  a  social  satirist.  Such,  he  assures 
you,  is  his  positive  adoration  of  work  that  he  could  sit 
still  a  whole  day  seeing  other  people  do  it.  This 
means  that  the  cafe  chantant  does  not  exactly  strike  the 
democratic  note  —  at  any  rate,  when  the  cafe  is  in  the 
Champs- Elysees.  When  it  is  farther  east,  this  song 
would  never  do.  Next,  perhaps,  we  ha\e  the  "  Polka 
of  the  Englishes,"  which  of  course  is  but  another  shy  at 
the  universal  Aunt  Sally  of  the  Continent.  Why  the 
American  escapes  in  Paris  I  know  not,  but  escape  he 
does.  I  have  seen  him  from  time  to  time  in  drama,  but 
never  on  the  music-hall  statre.  Yet  the  Americans  of 
this  capital,  as  I  should  judge  at  a  guess,  outnumber 
the  English.     Chorus : 

Tra  la  la  la  la,  la  la  la  la  la! 
Voila  les  Englishes  !     Ach,   yes  !      Very  well ! 

Tra  la  la  la  la,  la  la  la  la  la  ! 
Plats  comm'  des  sandwiches  !      Ach,  yes  !     Very  well  ! 

The  last  line  is  an  unkind  allusion  to  the  figures  of 
the  ladies.  The  singer  goes  on  to  say  that  when  the 
Englishes  have  made  their  millions  in  Paris  they  go 
back  to  "eat"  them  at  their  ease  in  London.  No 
wonder,  since  they  receive  this  hard  measure  from  the 
Paris  bards. 

Now  it  is  the  turn  of  the  latest  idol  of  the  music- 

194 


THE    LIFE    OF    THE    BOULEVARDS 

halls.  He  figures  as  the  common  soldier,  the  "  piou- 
])i()U,  "  with  his  simple  virtues  of  good  humor  and 
fidelity  to  the  flag,  and  his  simple  tastes  for  good  eating 
and  drinking  and  fat  nurse-maids — gallantry,  gaiety, 
and  courage,  the  irresistible  combination  for  the  French 
mind.  It  will  be  conducive  to  your  comfort  if  you  are 
not  able  to  understand  quite  all  that  he  sings.  Hap- 
pily, you  w  ill  ne\er  be  able  to  do  it  if  \'ou  have  con- 
fined \our  studies  of  French  to  the  classic  models.  He 
and  a  clever  songstress  blaze  together  in  the  firma- 
ment. Her  muse  is  more  subtle,  and  its  eccentricities 
are  better  composed.  But  composed  they  are.  The 
story  goes  that  some  art  students,  foreseeing  the  pos- 
sibilities of  a  new  music-hall  type,  resolved  to  create 
a  feminine  decadent.  Thev  searched  lon^r  for  their 
model,  and  at  length  found  it  in  this  slender  and 
cU'chaic-looking  woman.  Then  the}'  trained  her  for 
tones,  gestures,  tricks  of  manner — in  a  word,  for  style. 
She  was  an  apt  pupil,  and  when  they  had  done  with 
her  she  seemed  to  have  stepped  out  of  some  picture  of 
Botticelli  as  the  languidly  graceful  embodiment  of  all 
the  wickedness  and  cynicism  of  an  empty  day.  She  is 
really  an  artist,  and  that  is  perhaps  why  she  has  lasted 
so  long.  But  let  her  make  hay  while  the  sun  shines, 
remembering  a  once  beautiful  and  incomparable  crea- 
ture who  has  fallen  from  her  high  estate,  and  now 
twinkles  in  a  mere  milky  way  of  unmappable  stars. 
Nor  is  the  man  who  nearly  sang  France  into  a  re\olu- 
tion,  as  the  Pindar  of  Cjcneral  Boulanger,  now  \er}' 
much  in  evidence.  Yet  the  historian  of  the  future  will 
have  to  take  account  of  "  En  Revenant  de  la  Re\ue." 
He  must,  howe\er,  not  fail  to  remark  that  the  song  has 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

been  altered  to  suit  the  times,  and  that,  in  place  of 


Moi  j'  faisais  qu'  admirer 
Notr'  brav'  General  Boulanger, 


we  must  sing, 

Moi  tres  fort  je  criais, 
"  Vive  le  President  Loubet !  " 

As  the  boulevard  is  the  finish  for  the  Champs-Ely- 
sees,  so  Montmartre  is  the  finish  for  the  boulevard. 
The  whole  hillside  keeps  it  up  very  late  ;  in  fact,  one  of 
the  cafes  is  open  all  night.  Montmartre  by  night  is  a 
thing  that  many  go  to  see  just  to  make  sure  that  it  is 
not  worth  seeing.  The  goal  of  this  pilgrimage  is  the 
group  of  cafes,  artistic,  literary,  and  other,  which  are 
now  among  the  shows  of  Paris.  They  never  were  any- 
thing but  shows,  as  their  proprietors  were  never  any- 
thin  tr  but  showanen.  Some  of  the  Bohemians  for  the 
decorative  part  of  the  scheme  are  hired  precisely  like 
the  waiters.  The  net  result  is  the  patronage  of  provin- 
cials and  of  foreigners,  especially  of  candid  souls  from 
oversea  who  think  they  are  looking  on  something 
peculiarly  Parisian.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  showman 
has  these  fresh  importations  in  view  from  first  to  last. 
The  cafes  of  poets  are  always  changing,  and  always 
the  same.  At  one  time  the  Cafe  of  the  Black  Cat  had 
all  the  vogue.  Then,  when  this  grew  tiresome,  com- 
mercial enterprise  proved  equal  to  the  invention  of  the 
Cafe  of  the  Dead  Rat.  Now  the  names  have  changed 
again,  but  not  the  things.  The  Rat  was  the  Cat,  as  Cat 
and  Rat  together  are  in  palingenesia,  in  our  latest  birth 
of  time,  the  Red  Ass,  whose  name  might  be  enough  to 

196 


THE   BOULEVARD   AT    MIDNIGHT 


THE    LIFE    OF    THE    BOULEVARDS 

excite  misgiving  in  the  minds  of  its  customers.  The 
poets  and  artists  of  the  Ouarter  come  here  for  refresh- 
ment, spiritual  and  other ;  that  is  the  humor  of  it. 
They  are  supposed  to  come  to  recite  their  pieces  to  one 
another,  or  to  show  their  sketches,  as  they  might  offer 
their  confidences  of  genius  to  the  family  circle,  if  they 
had  ever  heard  of  such  a  thing.  Their  nearest  ap- 
proach to  the  conception  of  family  is  in  their  touching 
filial  relation  to  the  landlord  of  the  house  —  another 
supposition  expressly  started  for  the  crowd.  He  is  their 
father  rather  than  their  Uinonadier.  He  lets  them  run 
up  scores  during  the  sharp  frosts  of  the  Muse.  Nay, 
he  sometimes  helps  to  bring  them  out,  such  is  the 
legend.  Then,  when  they  win  fame  and  riches, —  and 
they  all  win  these  in  due  course, —  they  make  him  free 
of  their  palaces  in  the  Avenue  de  \'illiers,  and  of  their 
chalets  at  Poissy  or  at  Ecouen. 

Alas  and  alas  !  it  is  all  moonshine  in  purest  ray  se- 
rene. The  Montmartre  poets  are  mostly  an  even  poorer 
lot  in  spirit  than  they  are  in  purse,  and  they  will  never 
be  anything  else.  The  writers  and  artists  of  repute 
know  nothing  of  these  cafes,  or,  at  most,  see  them  once 
and  never  see  them  again.  Such  men  are  mostl)' 
steady  as  a  mere  condition  of  success.  X'ictor  Hugo 
was  temperate  and  a  hard  worker  in  his  youth  —  a  youth 
of  iron,  not  a  youth  of  gold.  So  was  Leconte  de 
Lisle.  So  was  Coppee.  So  was  Sully- Prudhomme. 
De  Musset  sometimes  took  more  than  was  good  for 
him,  but  not  in  places  like  these.  The  new  model  was 
started  by  Verlaine,  but  one  swallow  does  not  make  a 
summer,  and  it  is  needless  to  say  you  do  not  exactly 
imitate  his  talent  by  imitating  his  infirmities. 

199 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

Montmartrc  is  not  so  much  as  the  Grub  Street  of 
Paris,  for  Grub  Street  was  actually  productive-,  and  it 
was  at  least  sincere.  Most  of  these  poets  and  painters 
are  simply  the  failures  of  the  schools  masquerading  as 
the  coming  man.  They  arc  put  out  of  doors  as  soon 
as  they  cease  to  draw.  Their  very  wickedness  is 
scenic,  and  it  bears  a  strong  family  likeness  to  the  pota- 
tions from  the  skull  in  the  revels  of  Newstead  Abbey. 
The  contemplative  ratepayer  looks  in,  drinks  his  glass 
of  beer,  and  goes  his  way,  thanking  Heaven  he  was  not 
born  clever.  The  tourist  lavs  out  a  few  francs  in  a 
copy  of  a  song  or  a  copy  of  a  volume,  and  writes  well- 
meant  but  misguiding  letters  to  his  native  papers  to 
say  that  he  has  been  at  supper  with  the  gods. 

If  the  Red  Ass  is  your  mark,  you  must  steer  for  the 
Rue  des  Martyrs.  Its  walls  are  covered  with  pictures 
and  sketches,  with  here  and  there  a  bust  of  some  celeb- 
rity of  the  Quarter.  There  is  a  piano,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  near  it  hangs  a  monstrous  crown  sur- 
mounted by  a  star,  which,  from  time  to  time,  is  solemnly 
placed  on  the  brows  of  the  local  master  of  song.  The 
coronation,  to  be  fair,  is  sometimes  a  joke,  and  the  ut- 
most refinement  of  local  humor  is  to  offer  it  to  the  big- 
gest fool  of  the  company,  and  to  enjoy  his  fatuous  smile 
of  self-satisfaction.  The  room  is  crowded,  the  drinks 
are  in  brisk  demand  ;  and  through  the  haze  of  smoke 
one  may  get  a  glimpse  of  a  sibyl  of  the  moment  in  her 
incantation  scene  of  a  sentimental  song.  It  may  be  a 
pretty  song,  for  the  singers  do  not  always  cry  their 
own  wares.  The  company  is  too  busy  with  itself 
to  pay  much  attention  to  her  at  the  close,  but  it  is 
brought  to  a  sense  of  its  duties  by  a  master  of  ceremo- 

200 


THE    LIFE    OF    THE    BOULEVARDS 

nies.  This  personage,  who  is  in  evening  dress,  may 
possibly  be  a  bard,  but  he  is  certainly  on  the  staff  of 
the  estabhshment.  He  calls  for  three  rounds  of  ap- 
plause, which  are  given  in  a  French  variety  of  the  Kent- 
ish fire,  and  the  sibyl  abates  something  of  the  rigor  of 
her  frown.  His  business  is  to  force  the  fun,  and  he 
has  evidently  begun  with  himself  by  getting  considera- 
bly alcoholized.  His  hat  is  on  the  back  of  his  head,  as 
though  to  temper  the  severity  of  his  scheme  of  cos- 
tume with  a  suggestion  of  Bohemian  freedom.  The 
sibyl  is  succeeded  by  a  young  man  whose  song  is  of 
"  poor  mad  Jean,"  who  passes  for  a  sort  of  village  idiot, 
but  who,  nevertheless,  apostrophizes  all  the  pillars  of 
society  with  the  most  withering  effect.  No  deputy,  no 
banker,  no  mayor  in  his  scarf,  can  cross  Jean's  path 
without  a  word  of  invective  :  "  You  take  bribes."  "You 
get  up  bogus  companies."  "Your  popular  cry  of  the 
hour  is  but  a  juggler's  password."  But  these  crafty 
villains  are  equal  to  the  occasion,  and  they  juggle  away 
his  censures  with  their  pitying  smile.  "  It  is  only 
'poor  mad  Jean.'"  One  of  the  verses  might  almost 
provoke  Mr.  Sheldon  to  enter  an  action.  The  song  is 
well  written,  and  still  better  conceived.  But  the  odd 
thing  is  to  find  it  but  an  item  of  an  entertainment  by 
which  the  man  of  business  who  owns  the  establishment 
is  making  his  fortune  as  fast  as  he  can.  It  seems  to 
lack  conviction  on  the  part  of  the  management.  How- 
ever, it  breathes  the  sentiment  which  is  proper  to  the 
quarter  where  the  Commune  made  its  last  stand  —  and, 
besides,  there  is  a  policeman  at  the  door. 

The  Conservatoire,  hard  by  the  Place  Pigalle,  is  just 
such  another   cafe  —  sketches,    paintings,  portraits    of 

20I 


PARIS    Ol'     TO-DAY 

degenerate  jjocts,  ehiefly  of  Montmartre,  a  iiiotleN'  com- 
pany. The  portrait  of  \'erlaine  of  course  is  not  w  ant- 
ing-. He  is  the  j^atron  saint  of  these  houses,  and  e\ery 
one  of  them  makes  believe  to  have  a  shrine  of  his  "  fa- 


CAFE   SCAVENGERS 


\orite  corner."  The  wahs  and  ceihng  are  wrought 
into  the  hkeness  of  a  (lOthic  vault.  The  songs  are  the 
songs  of  the  Red  Ass ;  the  singers  are  sometimes  the 
singers  of  that  establishment  on  their  rounds;  the  ap- 
])lause  is  manufactured,  as  before,  by  another  leader  of 
the  claque.  The  impression  which  these  mechanics 
labor  to  convey  is  that  everybody  concerned  is  having  a 
deuce  of  a  time.     Some  of  the  poets  rush  from  cafe  to 


202 


THE    LIFE    OF    THE    BOULEVARDS 

cafe  in  fcxcrish  pursuit  of  applause,  and  may  be  found 
now  in  the  Latin  Quarter,  now  at  Montmartre,  with 
their  baggage  of  a  new  ode.  One  I  have  visited  in  his 
workshop  on  a  sixth  floor,  and,  sitting  on  his  narrow- 
bed,  for  want  of  a  second  chair,  have  had  the  honor 
of  hstening  to  a  theory  of  decadent  literature  which  I 
should  have  thought  beyond  the  dreams  of  the  asylum 
at  Charenton.  \  et  he  was  a  mild-mannered  nouul'' 
fellow,  and,  as  I  should  judge,  a  man  of  convictions, 
the  chief  one  being  that  you  must  be,  abo\e  all  things, 
desperately  wicked  if  y(ni  want  to  succeed  in  the  arts. 

The  attempt  to  surpass  these  institutions,  still  for  the 
benefit  of  the  same  set  of  customers,  has  led  to  the  cafes 
devoted  to  horrors.  Here  the  subjects  are  crime  and 
the  terrors  of  death.  It  is  infinitely  puerile,  and  to  con- 
sider it  with  indignation  would  be  to  consider  it  to(j 
seriously.  The  proprietors  are  showmen  once  more. 
One  of  the  weaknesses  of  the  French  is  a  taste  for 
make-believe  wickedness,  and  they  play  at  being 
naughty  as  others  play  at  being  good.  Their  I'artiiffe, 
though  he  is  a  national  creation,  is  no  national  tyjje. 
To  make  that  of  him  we  should  have  to  turn  him  the 
other  w  ay  about,  and  portray,  not  a  h}-pocrite  of  \irtue, 
but  a  h)pocrite  of  vice.  Thus,  in  the  Place  Pigalle, 
we  have  a  cafe  of  the  hulks,  an  establishment  devoted 
entirely  to  the  glorification  of  crime.  Its  proprietor 
would  no  doubt  be  highly  indignant  with  anybody  who 
picked  his  pocket  or  broke  into  his  house,  and  would 
claim  the  same  immunity  from  the  imputation  of  moral 
per\ersity  as  the  proprietor  of  the  chamber  of  horrors 
in  a  waxwork  show.  So  he  has  fitted  uj)  his  place  as  a 
museum,  w  ith  scraps  of  furniture  and  fittings  from  the 

203 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

old  prison  of  Mazas,  lately  demolished.  Here  )()U 
have  the  door  of  the  cell  in  \\  hicli  some  famous  crimi- 
nal, Pranzini  or  other,  passed  his  last  nii;ht  on  earth, 
with  perhaps  the  suit  of  clothes  in  which  he  was  exe- 
cuted, or,  it  may  be,  a  mortuary  tablet  of  some  other 
noted  hand,  "  guillotined  on  "  such  a  day.  The  {]cn  is 
ill  lighted,  and  to  keep  it  in  the  note  of  doom  you  enter 
to  a  kind  of  infernal  discord  due  to  the  joint  efforts  of  a 
cracked  piano  and  a  big  drum.  The  master  of  ceremo- 
nies, attired  as  a  Russian  muzhik,  but  in  black  \'elvet 
at  that,  offers  you  a  sort  of  disdainful  welcome,  and  af- 
fects to  regard  you  as  a  convict  or  a  murderer  at  large. 
The  songs  anci  recitations  are  in  honor  of  the  fraternity 
of  crime  to  which  you  are  supposed  to  belong.  It  is 
dreadfully  tedious,  and  five  minutes  of  it  is  more  than 
enough  for  the  most  robust  endurance.  If  you  ask  for 
explanation,  you  are  informed  that  it  is  a  sort  of  object- 
lesson  on  the  theories  of  the  realist  school.  The  man 
in  velvet  occasionally  contributes  to  the  harmony,  in 
the  character  of  a  desperate  ruffian  glorying  in  a  deed 
of  blood,  but,  as  one  may  judge,  he  is,  at  the  heart  of 
him,  a  finished  noodle  and  nincompoop.  In  private 
conversation  he  alludes  to  the  little  villa  in  the  suburbs 
which  is  the  reward  of  his  steady  attention  to  business. 
A  yawning  policeman  in  the  background  takes  the  sting 
out  of  the  whole  entertainment  by  showing  that  it  is 
under  the  protection  of  order  and  of  law. 

If  you  care  for  any  more  of  it,  there  is  a  neighboring 
Cafe  du  Neant,  otherwise  a  cafe  of  nothingness  or  cafe 
of  death.  There  the  tables  at  which  you  are  served 
are  shaped  as  coffins,  and  the  whole  place  is  lighted  with 
corpse-lights.      A  waiter  rigged  up  as  an  undertaker's 

20-f 


AN    ARCADE 


SCHHMERS    TOR    POLITICAL    PRl-KLRMENT 


man  accosts  you  w  ith  a  "  Good  evening,  moribund," 
and  serves  you  with  refreshment,  which,  by  its  quahty, 
seems  designed  to  hasten  your  passage  to  the  other 
^\•orld.  There  are  emblems  of  death  all  round  the  walls, 
with  mottos,  such  as,  "  To  be  or  not  to  be,"  or  "  Life  is 


207 


PARIS    OF     lO-DAY 

a  folly  which  Death  corrects."  From  the  cafe  you 
pass  into  a  vaulted  chamber  at  the  back  of  the  premises, 
with  a  stage  which  is  simply  furnished  with  a  coffin, 
standing  upright.  A  man  takes  his  place  in  the  coffin, 
kisses  his  hand  to  the  audience,  and  then  by  some  optical 
illusion  he  gradually  fades  away  into  the  likeness  of  a 
skeleton  outlined  in  light.  In  a  moment  he  comes 
back  to  life  again,  steps  out,  and  w  ith  a  bow  disap- 
pears.    This  is  the  Cafe  of  Death. 

The  Cafe  of  the  Infernal  Regions,  close  by,  is  an 
equally  finished  contrivance  in  absurdity.  Here,  as  you 
enter,  you  find  yourself  in  a  scene  of  penal  fire,  very 
red,  and  your  orders  are  taken  by  devils.  Then,  as 
before,  you  troop  into  the  room  at  the  back,  in  which 
twining  serpents  form  the  scheme  of  decoration.  When 
the  curtain  goes  up,  you  are  introduced  by  the  show- 
man to  Satan,  and  to  madame,  his  wife.  The  enemy 
of  mankind  is  simply  an  acrobat,  dressed  in  red,  and 
illuminated  with  lime-light  of  the  same  color  as  he  turns 
and  twists  before  the  audience.  Madame  is  a  lady  in 
the  scanty  costume  of  the  ballet,  and  she  stands  in 
flames  of  many  colors,  and  finally  seems  to  be  con- 
sumed by  them  and  to  disappear.  Other  ladies  of  her 
court  burn  down  to  the  vanishing-point  in  the  same  way. 

The  final  stage  of  this  pilgrimage  of  tomfoolery  is  the 
Cabaret  of  Heaven,  a  few  doors  farther  off.  Here  it  is 
needless  to  say  the  waiters  wear  wings,  and  the  place  is 
made  up  like  a  Gothic  cathedral,  while  a  sort  of  deacon 
ushers  customers  to  their  places.  You  are  then  invited 
to  mount  to  the  abode  of  bliss,  and  you  pass  into  an 
upper  room  where  other  members  of  the  gang  go 
through  a  blasphemous  masquerade. 

208 


TH1{    Lll'E    OF     THF.     B()IM.1{VARDS 

These  cafes  are  not  to  be  taken  as  a  sign  of  the  utter 
wickedness  and  degradation  of  Paris.  They  are  but  a 
corner  of  the  city,  at  the  worst,  and  a  corner  in  which 


A    CAFE   CHANTANT    IN    THE    CHAMPS-ELYSEES 

you  will,  as  a  rule,  find  more  foreigners  and  provincials 
than  you  will  find  Parisians. 

The  Empire,  with  all  its  faults,  kept  a  tighter  hand 
on  the  dissipations  of  the  capital,  and,  whatexer  it  did 
on  its  own  account,  it  knew  how  to  govern  in  the  inter- 
ests of  public  order.     If  follies  now  enjoy  more  tolera- 

209 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

tion,  it  is  because  they  are  merely  the  accidents  and  the 
excesses  of  the  freedom  that  France  has  won.  We 
must  take  the  good  with  the  bad.  The  administration 
is  less  powerful  ;  people  are  better  able  to  do  as  they 
like  for  good,  and  that  implies,  in  rare  and  exceptional 
instances,  the  power  of  doing  as  they  like  for  e\'il.  The 
all-night  cafes  should  be  closed.  There  is  a  huge  one 
in  the  Rue  Royale  which  casts  a  ruddy  light  across  the 
way  until  the  dawn  comes  to  put  it  to  shame.  By  that 
ray  we  may  see  the  neighboring  flower-market  of  the 
Madeleine,  now  being  stocked  for  the  day,  in  time  for 
the  morning  visit  of  fashion.  This  brings  us  to  the 
boulevard  once  more,  and,  as  the  boulevard  is  at  last 
at  peace,  it  had  better  lead  us  home  to  bed. 


2  10 


THE   NEW    I'ALAIS    DES    BEAUX   ARTS,    AS   SEEN    FROM   THE 
LEFT   BANK   OF  THE  SEINE   AT  NIGHT 


ARTISTIC    PARIS 


A  RT,  literature,  the  drama,  are  not  only  the  great- 
/%  est  spiritual  forces  in  France  ;  they  are  among 
^/  ^  the  greatest  of  national  industries.  A  man 
may  purpose  to  live  by  them  without  having  to  feel 
that  the  first  step  is  to  run  away  from  home.  There  is 
nothing  that  need  shun  the  light  in  the  pursuit.  It 
leads  to  no  grandmotherly  shaking  of  the  head,  and  it 
is  not  mentioned  —  at  any  rate,  for  banning,  as  distinct 
from  blessing  —  at  family  prayers. 

The  French  are  not  only  ready  to  admire  a  great 
artist,  but  they  are  exceedingly  proud  to  take  ser- 
vice in  his  corps.  Perhaps  the  crowning  achieve- 
ment in  the  career  of  Meissonier  was  his  instal- 
ment as  mayor  of  Poissy,  his  country  place,  a  few 
miles  from  Paris.  It  signified  the  full  and  perfect 
acceptance  of  him  by  the  ratepayer.  So,  while  Paris 
was  at  his  feet,  you  might  find  him,  in  the  intervals  of 
homage,  at  the  beck  and  call  of  this  humble  commune, 
laboring  in  its  little  council,  and  fighting  the  good  fight 
of  local  self-government  on  the  question  of  a  new  foot- 
path or  of  a  new  lamp.      He  went  from  the  council- 

215 


PARIS    OF     rO-DAY 

board  to  his  fine  chateau,  and  from  there  to  his  finer 
mansion  by  the  Avenue  de  VilHers,  twin  splendors  that 
were  well-nigh  the  ruin  of  him.  The  last  was  a  veri- 
table palace  of  art.  He  designed  it  himself,  or,  at  any 
rate,  he  drew  every  detail  of  the  wood-carving,  and  you 
went  from  floor  to  floor  by  a  staircase  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance,  until  you  found  the  little  man  and  the 
little  picture  in  the  recesses  of  the  shrine.  Art  was  his 
industry,  and  he  devoted  its  rewards  to  ambitions 
worthy  of  the  king  of  an  oil  trust.  He  earned  by  tens 
of  thousands  and  spent  by  hundreds  of  thousands,  and 
he  ended  his  life  as  a  hostage  in  the  hands  of  the 
dealers,  painting  masterpiece  after  masterpiece  to  liqui- 
date their  claims,  with  only  a  bare  percentage  for  his 
own  share.  The  very  colorman  once  struck  for  a  pay- 
ment on  account. 

The  palace  near  the  Avenue  de  Villiers  is  the  ruin  of 
many  a  good  man.  He  begins  to  build  as  soon  as  he 
begins  to  sell,  and  his  building  may  soon  become  a 
Frankenstein  monster.  Its  claims  compel  him  to  paint 
for  the  market,  instead  of  painting,  in  the  first  place, 
for  his  own  good  pleasure ;  and  that  way  lies  the 
lowest  deep  of  ruin,  the  ruin  of  the  artistic  soul.  Still, 
the  very  temptation  implies  that  his  craft  is,  in  a  certain 
vulgar  sense,  one  of  the  most  profitable  of  trades  — 
one  that  enables  a  man  to  look  the  successful  grocer 
in  the  face  without  a  blush  for  the  poverty  of  his  own 
calling. 

So  it  is  with  all  the  arts  in  France.  Happily,  most 
of  their  professors  are  content  to  live  at  home  at  ease, 
and  to  "  put  by,"  with  never  a  thought  of  sumptuary 
glories.     I  have  known  a  successful  producer  of  Holy 

2  l6 


ARTISTIC     PARIS 

Families  who  lived  in  great  simplicity,  though  his  time 
was  worth  so  much  that  he  was  said  to  lose  two  hun- 
dred francs  every  time  he  sat  down  to  lunch.  Degas 
is  another  and  a  more  honorable  example  of  the  same 
sort.  He  has  never  painted  for  the  market ;  he  has 
painted  only  to  please  himself  and  a  circle  of  devotees. 
But  these  have  been  numerous  enough  to  provide  him 
with  all  the  essentials  of  a  happy  life.  He  paints,  sells 
when  the  wind  blows  a  customer  his  way,  hangs  up 
on  his  own  walls  what  he  does  not  sell,  rails  at  the 
Salon  and  at  the  Academy,  and  altogether  enjoys 
himself  immensely  in  a  habitation  which,  by  com- 
parison, is  but  a  tub  of  Diogenes.  It  used  to  be  de- 
lightful to  see  the  old  man  in  the  greenroom  of  the 
Opera  studying  the  flying  squadrons  of  the  ballet  in 
their  exercises  at  the  bar.  His  passion  was  the  ren- 
dering of  movement — movement  caught  in  its  fugi- 
tive grace  of  pause.  His  tulle  in  the  moment  of 
transition  to  fleecy  cloud,  his  twinkling  feet  on  their 
way  to  become    stars    of   the   firmament,    are  abiding 

joys- 
Nowadays,   therefore,   students  may  enter  the  arts, 

as  they  have   long   since   entered   the    professions,  as 

recognized    careers    commending   themselves  alike  to 

ambition  and  to  the  prudence  of  the  chimney-corner. 

The  change  is  not  confined  to  France.     But  there  is 

a  difference.     A  lad  who  goes  to  school  at  the  London 

Royal   Academy  goes  for  his  teaching  and  no  more. 

He  still  follows  his  earlier  way  of  life  and  his  social 

traditions,  and  his  day's  work  is  only  one  of  the  things 

of  the  day.     A  lad  who  enters  the  Beaux  Arts  at  once 

belongs  to  a  veritable  students'  corps.     He  is  a  new 

217 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 


man.  The  tDinloolerics  of  the  reeeptiun  by  the  class 
—  so  often  described  —  have  still  a  meaning.  It  is 
not  merely  that  the  freshman  has  to  sing  a  song  by 


IN   THE   STUDIO   OF   A    MASTER 

order,  to  do  the  meanest  "  chores,"  and  generally  to 
make  an  ass  of  himself.  The  real  purpose  is  to  take 
the  nonsense  of  mere  individualism  out  of  him,  and  to 
make  him  feel  that  hereafter  he  belongs  to  a  frater- 
nity.     The  processions  of  the  students,  their  mighty 

2l8 


ARTISTIC     PARIS 

hall  of  the  four  arts,  their  very  street  rows,  are  all 
parts  of  the  same  process.  Every  neophyte  has  still 
his  eye  on  the  great  possibilities  of  his  career,  and  a 
sense  of  the  unity  that  is  strength.  His  hopes  make 
all  his  hardships  easy.  The  horse-beef  of  the  res- 
taurants, where  they  manage  the  whole  dinner  of  four 
courses  and  dessert  well  under  two  francs,  is  only  an 
accident  of  the  pursuit  of  glor)-.  All  things  conspire 
to  put  the  famished  customer  into  good  conceit  with 
himself. 

Paris  lives  even  more  obtrusively  for  art  than  it 
lives  for  commerce.  There  is  art  everywhere  —  in  the 
streets  and  gardens  as  well  as  in  the  picture-galler- 
ies, in  the  churches  and  town  halls,  decorated  by 
liberal  commissions  from  government.  The  very  bill- 
boards are  galleries  of  black  and  white.  The  govern- 
ment does  its  part  just  as  if  the  industry  were  a  question 
of  coal  or  iron.  It  is  fostering  and  protecting,  if  not 
protective.  The  elementary-school  system,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  is  a  net  thrown  over  all  France  to  catch 
children  of  promise.  If  they  do  well  in  their  rudi- 
ments of  drawing,  they  are  passed  on  to  schools  where 
they  may  do  better.  If  they  do  supremely  well  in  these 
schools,  they  will  assuredly  be  urged  to  go  to  the 
Beaux  Arts. 

Of  course  most  of  the  students  enter  that  institution 
without  any  call  but  the  inner  one.  However,  there 
the  school  is,  for  all.  It  is  a  masterpiece  of  contri\- 
ance  to  a  given  end,  with  its  grade  upon  grade  of 
teaching  right  up  to  the  highest.  Nothing  is  left  to 
chance.  You  are  supposed  to  know^  your  rudiments, 
and  more,  when  you  go  there:  it  is  no  school  for  the 

2  19 


PARTS    OF    TO-DAV 

a-b-c.  You  must  bring  drawings  or  paintings  to  the 
professor  as  evidence  of  vocation.  If  he  thinks  there 
is  promise,  he  gives  you  leave  to  "aspire."  This 
means  that  you  may  enter  the  section  of  the  antique, 
where  he  will  quietly  keep  an  eye  on  your  work.  If 
you  fail  there,  you  go  no  further.  If  you  succeed, 
you  one  day  get  your  promotion  to  the  life-class,  and 
rank  as  a  member  of  the  atelier  of  your  chosen  master. 
From  this  time  forth  he  takes  something  of  a  personal 
interest  in  you.  His  devotion  to  art,  if  not  to  the 
student,  never  fails.  I  have  seen  Gerome  propped 
up  on  a  bed  of  sickness  to  look  at  the  drawings  of  a 
raw  hand  from  the  other  side  of  the  sea,  a  lad  who 
was  not  even  his  countryman.  And  remember  that 
men  like  Gerome  teach  \'irtually  for  nothing.  Their 
stipend  from  the  state  is  ridiculous  —  a  mere  drop  in 
the  bucket  of  their  earnings.  They  come  down  to  give 
of  their  best  to  all  these  youngsters,  from  all  quarters 
of  the  world,  just  for  love  of  their  art  and  pride  in  it. 
In  the  atelier  you  have  the  stimulus  of  all  sorts  of 
competitions.  There  is  the  monthly  contest  for  the 
right  to  choose  your  place.  The  professor  looks  at 
your  work,  marks  it  as  first,  second,  third,  and  so  on, 
in  the  order  of  merit;  and  as  it  is  marked,  so  you  have 
the  right  to  plant  your  easel  where  you  will  for  all  the 
month  to  come.  It  registers  a  step  in  honor,  and  it 
precludes  bad  blood.  Then  comes  the  annual  com- 
petition for  the  medal,  or  a  tremendous  struggle  for  a 
place  in  some  special  class.  Yvon's  used  to  be  a  fa- 
vorite for  the  rigor  of  the  game  in  drawing.  The  pro- 
fessor held  that,  whatever  else  a  man  carried  away  with 
him  from  the  Beaux  Arts,  he  should  not  fail  to  have  an 

220 


ARTISTIC     PARIS 

impeccable  perception  of  the  niceties  of  form.  The 
other  things  were  for  other  teaching,  for  other  stages. 
Yvon's  best  man  was  able  to  draw  anything  in  any 
position,  and  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of  surprise  by  the 
eccentricities  of  contour.  With  this  we  have  examina- 
tions in  history,  ornament,  perspective,  anatomy.  Stu- 
dents are  supposed  to  know  something  about  these  col- 
laterals of  their  great  subject.  Many  take  the  history 
and  the  perspective  in  a  perfunctory  way,  feeling  that 
the  strain  is  not  there,  and  that  drawing  and  painting 
are  still  the  heart  of  the  mystery.  In  the  final  heat  for 
Yvon's  the  few  that  were  left  did  their  best  in  a  drawing 
from  the  figure,  \\hich  had  to  be  cf)mpleted  in  so  many 
days  of  two  hours  each. 

Beyond  this,  of  course,  there  is  the  struggle  for  the 
Prix  de  Rome  —  very  properly  restricted  to  French- 
men. It  is  something  like  a  prize  —  the  winner  has 
free  quarters  in  the  art  capital  of  the  world  on  a  liberal 
allowance  from  the  state.  The  first  heat  is  a  sketch  in 
oils,  and  the  result,  of  course,  lea\'es  many  out  of  the 
race.  The  second  is  a  figure  in  oils.  For  the  third, 
the  few  left  standing  are  sent  to  paint  against  one  an- 
other for  their  lives  on  a  subject  given  by  the  school. 
Now,  there  are  all  sorts  of  possibilities  of  unfair  play  in 
a  competition  of  this  sort,  and  against  them  authority 
has  taken  due  precaution.  A  man  ma)-  get  outside 
help,  and  bring  in  a  work  that  is  only  half  his  own ; 
and  even  if  he  does  every  bit  of  it,  he  may  still  have 
fed  his  invention  on  the  contraband  of  borrowed  ideas. 
So,  to  prevent  all  that,  they  put  him  in  a  kind  of  mo- 
nastic cell  in  the  school  itself,  and  there  for  three  mortal 
months,  until  his  task  is  done,  he  has  to  live  and  work, 

22  I 


PARIS    OF     lO-DAY 

with  no  communication  from  tlic  outer  world.  He  is 
what  is  called  en  logc.  He  brin^^s  in  his  own  traps, 
and  he  is  as  effectually  under  lock  and  key  as  any  Chi- 
nese scholar  competing  for  the  prize  of  Peking.  The 
moving-in  day  for  the  Prix  de  Rome  is  one  of  the  sights 
of  the  Latin  Quarter,  with  its  baggage-trains  of  per- 
sonal gear  ranging  from  the  easel  of  study  to  the  fiddle 
of  recreation.  When  it  is  all  over,  and  the  best  man 
has  won,  he  settles  for  four  years  in  the  capital  of  Italy 
to  rummage  at  his  ease  in  its  treasure-houses  of  the  art 
of  all  time.  ( )f  course  he  has  to  rummage  on  a  plan. 
Paris  requires  of  him  a  work  every  year,  to  show  that 
he  has  been  making  good  use  of  his  time.  If  this  is  of 
unusual  merit,  it  is  bought  by  the  government. 

The  Beaux  Arts  is  an  all-round  institution,  like  most 
others  in  France.  It  is  for  sculpture  as  well  as  for 
painting;  for  architecture,  for  line-engraving  ;  even  for 
the  cutting  of  gems.  In  every  one  of  these  branches 
the  government  offers  encouragement  by  the  purchase 
of  good  work.  In  every  one  it  stores  the  best  exam- 
ples, many  of  them  the  spoil  of  vanquished  nations,  and 
provides  the  best  teaching  and  the  best  libraries  of 
critical  and  historic  reference.  The  lectures  cover  the 
whole  field.  \'et,  complete  as  it  is  in  itself,  the  great 
school  is  only  one  of  the  sections  of  the  Institute  of 
France. 

The  Institute  is  for  the  higher  learning  in  all  its 
branches.  Its  five  academies  include  the  Academie 
Fran^aise,  which,  be  it  remembered,  is  only  another 
sovereign  state  of  this  mighty  federation  of  the  things 
of  the  mind.  For  others  still,  we  have  the  academies 
of  Inscriptions  and   Belles- Lettres,  of  Science,  and  of 

222 


WORKING    FOR   THE   I'RIX   DE   ROME 


ARTISTIC     PARIS 

Moral  and  Political  Sciences.  In  its  cnlircts'  it  is  a 
sort  of  "  pKiuirc  within  for  everythinj;- " — 1 'Vance  luxu- 
riating in  the  sense  of  universalisni  of  master\'  over 
all  that  pertains  to  knowledge.  Nothing  ought  to  come 
amiss  to  it.  When  the  Chinaman  in  "  Cham's  "  carica- 
ture boggles  over  the  bill  of  fare,  the  waiter  leads  him 
by  his  pigtail  to  the  Institute  to  ask  for  an  interpreter. 

Literature  is  another  of  the  great  industries,  for 
France  still  does  a  consideral)le  export  tratle  in  that 
article.  Nothing  is  wasted.  The  still-born  fiction  of 
the  year  is  regularly  exported  to  South  America  as  the 
latest  rage  of  the  boulevard.  Most  of  its  job  lots  are 
simply  paradoxes  that  have  failed.  The  French  are 
always  on  the  lookout  for  the  new  thing,  and  this  is  at 
once  the  worst  danger  of  their  literature  and  its  alluring 
charm.  They  have  their  spring  patterns  in  ideas,  as  in 
muslins,  and  a  fashion  seldom  outlasts  the  season.  The 
literary  schools  are  about  as  short-lived  as  the  govern- 
ments, and  founders  come  and  go  just  like  ministers  of 
state.  You  meet  young  fellows  who  have  had  their 
day —  graybeards  of  failure  still  with  raven  locks.  For 
they  must  be  very  young  at  the  start.  Paris  likes  them 
tender,  since  she  means  to  eat  them  up.  I  have  known 
a  lad  of  parts  quite  put  out  because  his  "  system  "  was 
not  ready  for  publication  before  he  had  turned  eighteen. 
France  believes  in  youth  just  because  of  her  age.  The 
contact  warms  her  blood.  She  has  believed  in  it  more 
than  ever  since  the  German  war.  The  school-boy  lauds 
it  in  all  the  arts,  and  the  salons  discover  an  infant 
prodigy  every  day.  It  leads  to  some  waste  of  effort, 
of  course.  The  eccentricities  of  these  young  men  in  a 
hurry    are    appalling.     Critical    indignation   is  thrown 

225 


PARIS    OF     lO-DAY 

away  upon  thcni,  and  the  only  corrective  is  the  rude 
justice  of  their  struggle  for  survival. 

The  history  of  French  schools  from  the  beginning  of 
the  century  is  a  history  of  nature  working  by  tooth  and 
claw.  The  pure  romantics,  after  a  vigorous  attempt  to 
destroy  the  classicists,  were  themselves  destroyed  by 
their  own  offspring  of  diabolism,  as  these,  in  turn,  fell 
before  the  romantics  of  the  epileptic  variety.  These 
revolutions  in  art  devour  their  own  children,  just  like 
the  others ;  and  there  is  always  a  Mountain  brooding 
rapine  at  the  expense  of  the  fatness  of  tlie  plain.  The 
Parnassians  and  the  plastics,  who  swept  the  last  roman- 
tics out  of  the  field,  are  themselves  only  a  memory. 
It  seems  a  far  cry  to  the  time  when  the  first  care  of 
the  intellio'ent  forei'^ner  on  reachinsj'  the  boulevard  was 
to  buy  the  latest  volume  of  the  "  Parnasse  Contempo- 
rain."  Charming  little  \'olumes  they  all  were,  creamy 
to  the  eye  and  to  the  mind.  But  their  cream  is  now 
the  yellow  of  age,  and  they  mature  for  the  collectors  in 
covers  of  price.  What  futile  headaches  are  between  the 
boards ! 

Zola  and  his  naturalists  are  graybeards  in  every 
sense,  yet  it  seems  not  so  \'ery  long  since  they  went  out 
every  day  to  take  the  scalps  of  the  sachems  of  more 
ancient  lodges,  and  seldom  returned  without  a  trophy. 
They  were  wont  to  celebrate  their  triumphs  by  feasts  in 
tlie  w  igwam  of  the  patron,  with  much  boiled  and  roast, 
and  still  more  talk,  in  the  twilight,  of  that  literature  of 
dautier  and  his  mates  to  which  they  had  given  the 
death-blow,  and  of  the  other  literature  which  was  to 
take  its  place.  Of  this  last,  "  O  king,  live  forever!" 
was  to  be  read  between  the  lines  on  every  page.     Well, 

226 


ARTISTIC     PARIS 


well,  \\  here  is  it  now  ?     P.ut  why  say  more  than  Mr. 
Justice  Shallow  has   said   ah-cad\'  —  "All   shall  die"? 


te'-  ^ 


X 


^*\. 


^    m. 


MEMBERS  OF    THE    EKENCll    Al'.ADh.MY.     AFTER    A    SESSION,    CROSSING 
THE    PONT    Ui;S    ARTS    FROM    THE    INSTITLTE 

And  has  not  Beranp^er  sung  the  "  old  clo'  "  of  the  war- 
riors who  ha\c  IkuI  their  day?  The  imperious  neces- 
sity of  the  new  thing  dro\  e  the  disciples  themselves  into 

227 


PARIS    OF     lO-DAY 

revolt  ajj^ainst  the  master,  and  one  b)'  one  they  set  up 
rival  schools,  and  demolished  him  in  epis^rammatic 
prefaces — generally  the  best  things  in  their  books. 

For  naturalism  is  by  no  means  to  be  confounded  with 
naturism,  which  is  one  of  our  later  births  of  time.  The 
schools  generate  just  as  the  midges  do,  and  each  may 
suffice  for  its  hour.  One  springs  out  of  the  other. 
"  Rousseau,"  said  Tocque\'ille,  "  begat  Bernardin  de 
St.-Pierre,  who  begat  Chateaubriand,  who  begat  X'ictor 
Hugo,  who,  being  tempted  of  the  devil,  is  begetting 
e\'ery  day."  It  might  be  put  in  still  another  ^^■ay : 
Zola  hunted  Hugo,  Huysmans  hunted  Zola,  and  now 
Saint-Georges  de  Bouhelier  hunts  Huysmans.  and  \\  ith 
him  the  symbolists  and  the  decadents.  This  stripling's 
new  pattern  for  the  shop-windows  is  the  rehabilitation 
of  virtue,  and  the  simplicity  of  nature, —  always,  of 
course,  of  nature  as  an  article  de  Paris, —  and  the  re- 
establishment  of  the  old  friendly  relations  "  between  the 
])lant,  the  bird,  and  the  emotion  of  a  man."  It  is  all  very 
well,  but  it  tends  to  bring  literature  down  to  a  question 
of  mere  procedure,  and  to  reduce  its  entire  ])riest- 
hood  to  a  gang  of  workmen  squabbling  over  the 
make  of  their  tools.  Lemaitre  is  right ;  if  we  do  not 
take  care,  letters  will  become  but  "  a  mysterious  di- 
version of  mandarins."  The  peril  drew  \'ery  near  when 
Stevenson  tried  to  reduce  the  magic  of  a  fine  passage 
from  "  Troilus  and  Cressida  "  to  a  series  of  cunning  al- 
ternations of  p.  V.  f.  s.'sand  p.  s.  f.  v.'s.  Amid  all  these 
distracted  and  distracting  novelties  \\e  have  Brunetiere 
still  hitting  out  for  the  classical  tradition,  as  Nisard  hit 
out  in  Hugo's  time  —  striking  too  short  at  Zola  and  the 
naturalists  ;  at  Lemaitre  and  at  Anatole  France  as  mere 

228 


ARTISTIC    PARIS 

impressionists  of  criticism ;  at  modern  science  for  its 
"  bankruptcy  "  in  regard  to  the  solution  of  the  mystery 
ofbeintr.  He  would  bring  all  these  innovators  under 
the  wholesale  tyranny  of  great  critical  laws,  and  teach 
them  that  indi\iilua]ism  is  the  enemy,  alike  in  art 
and  faith.  Xo  wonder  that  Edouard  Rod,  with  an 
equal  concern  for  indixidualism  and  for  law,  is  one  of 
the  most  interesting  literary  figures  of  the  day. 

The  literature  is  backed  by  the  institutions,  above  all 
by  the  French  Academy.  It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that 
the  Academy  exists  mainly  for  the  purification  of  the 
language  and  for  the  completion  of  the  dictionary. 
Its  great  aim  is  the  production  of  the  normal  man 
of  letters,  the  ec[uipoised  personality  of  wisdom,  wit, 
gravity,  gaiety,  the  harmony  of  sometimes  conflicting 
opposites  which  old-fashioned  people  look  for  in  the  per- 
fect writer.  This  product  of  fancy  is  as  exc[uisitely 
proportioned  as  a  (^reek  temple.  All  his  powers  are 
subordinate  to  soxereign  reason,  working  in  a  metlium 
of  good  taste.  Taste  is  the  enemy  of  excess,  so  he  has 
to  be  not  too  much  of  anything,  but  just  exactly  enough 
—  a  sort  of  Grandison  of  the  desk. 

The  attempt  to  create  such  a  type  in  its  wider  appli- 
cation to  life  at  large  has  been  the  delight  of  every  age. 
Newman  sketched  it  with  a  master  hand  in  his  character 
of  the  gentleman.  The  gentleman  of  his  and  the  British 
ideal  is  verv  much  the  perfect  writer  of  the  French  ideal. 
Our  greatest  stress  of  admiration  lies  in  the  domain  of 
manners;  theirs  in  the  domain  of  the  arts.  Newman's 
great  exemplar  carefully  avoids  whatever  may  cause  a 
jar  or  a  jolt  in  the  minds  of  those  with  whom  he  is  cast, 
lie  is  against  all    clashing  of  ttpinion,  all  collision  of 

229 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

fcclini;',  all  restraint  or  suspicion  or  gloom  or  resentment, 
his  concern  being  to  make  every  one  at  case  and  at 
home.  He  has  his  eyes  on  all  his  company ;  he  is 
tender  toward  the  bashful,  gentle  toward  the  distant, 
merciful  toward  the  absurd.  lie  guards  against  un- 
seasonable allusions  or  topics.  He  is  seldom  prominent 
in  conversation,  and  never  wearisome.  He  makes  light 
of  favors  while  he  does  them,  and  seems  to  be  recei\ing 
when  he  is  conferring.  He  never  speaks  of  himself, 
and,  except  when  compelled,  never  defends  himself  by 
a  mere  retort;  has  no  ears  for  slander  or  gossip;  is 
scrupulous  in  imputing  motives  to  those  who  interfere 
with  him;  interprets  everything  for  the  best.  He  is 
never  mean  or  little  in  his  disputes,  never  takes  unfair 
advantage,  never  mistakes  personalities  or  sharp  say- 
ings for  argument,  or  insinuates  evil  which  he  dare  not 
say  out.     In  short,  he  is  "just  so." 

Of  course  he  is  only  Chesterfield,  with  the  difference 
of  the  application  to  ethical  character,  and  Chesterfield, 
it  is  needless  to  say,  was  French  to  the  lieart's  core. 
That  noble  lord's  ideal  in  manners  is  the  Academy's 
ideal  in  literary  art.  His  forgotten  and  overmuch  de- 
rided letters  should  be  read  again  as  a  help  to  the  com- 
prehension of  this  singular  institution  whose  concern  is 
the  good  breeding  of  style.  Where  he  enjoins  dignity 
of  demeanor,  and  warns  against  horse-play,  romping, 
loud  fits  of  laughter,  jokes,  and  waggishness  in  com- 
pany, the  Academy  condemns  their  analogues  in  books. 
The  man  who  takes  the  floor  in  print  is,  in  the  Acad- 
emy's \'\c\\-,  only  the  buffoon  of  a  larger  society  than 
the  one  that  Chesterfield  had  in  his  mind.  As  the  good 
little  child  of  nursery  ethics  is  seen,  not  heard,  so  the 

230 


VARNISHING    DAY    AT   THE   SALON 


ARTISTIC     PARIS 

good  littK'  w  I'itcr  of  the  academic  ideal  is  heard,  l)iit  not 
seen.  Lie  low  in  self-assertion;  disdain  to  shine  l)y 
tricks,  says  the  Academy.  \Vhoe\eris  known  in  com- 
pany, says  my  lord,  for  the  sake  of  any  one  thing  singly, 
is  singly  that  thing,  and  will  ne\er  be  considered  in 
any  other  light.  It  is  the  plea  for  universals,  for  bal- 
ance. Chesterfield's  contempt  for  the  man  who  boasted 
that  he  had  written  for  three  years  with  the  same  pen, 
and  that  it  was  an  e.xcellent  good  one  still,  is  the  Acad- 
emy  to  a  hair.  It  was  an  individualizing  l)oast,  and 
the  <'rand  style  knows  nothing' of  indi\idualism.  His 
horror  of  those  who  haye  a  constant  smirk  on  the  face 
and  a  "  whiffling"  (precious  word)  acti\'ity  of  the  body 
may  be  matched  by  the  Academy's  horror  of  the  pro- 
fessional humorist.  His  scorn  of  proverbs  and  of  cant 
sayings  is  the  Academy's  scorn  of  cheap  and  easy  refer- 
ence. His  atlmiration  of  the  man  who  comes  into 
company  without  the  least  bashfulness  or  sheepishness, 
but  w  ith  a  modest  confidence  and  ease,  is  the  Acad- 
emy's admiration  of  the  writer  who  makes  no  attempt 
to  recommend  his  work  by  tricks  of  apology,  but  just 
leaves  it  to  speak  for  itself.  His  pregnant  saying  that 
the  wise  man  will  live  at  least  twice  as  much  within 
his  wit  as  within  his  income  is  the  Academy  once 
more. 

That  illustrious  body,  as  it  is  ever  represented  in 
French  critical  literature  by  some  great  pedagogic 
figure,  is  constantly  rapping  the  whole  class  of  success- 
ful writers  o\'er  the  knuckles,  and  ordering  them  to 
leave  ofi'  making  a  nt)ise.  It  was  represented  b)'  Xi- 
sard  when  the  fierce  torrent  of  romanticism  burst  over 
the  classic  plain  ;   it  is  represented  to-da}'   by   Brune- 

233 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAV 

ticrc,  wlio  may  he  fi<;'urctl  as  some  weary  schoolmaster 
floggini;  an  unrul\-  class  —  rtt)gging  till  he  tlrops.  He 
has  flogged  them  all  in  turn, —  I'laubert,  Zola,  Daudet, 
Loti,and  Maupassant.  —  yet  still,  somehow,  too  much  of 
their  lawless  riot  goes  on,  with  all  the  base  trickery  of 
the  devices  by  which  the\-  win  the  kingship  of  their 
despicable  w^orld.  It  is  nothing  to  the  purpose  to  say 
that  those  he  castigates  are  sometimes  of  his  own 
household.  He  would  flog  half  his  brother  Academi- 
cians, if  he  dared,  for  their  occasional  treason  to  the 
tradition. 

The  tragedy  of  his  life  is  that  the  balanced  man  has 
gone  out  of  fashion,  and  that  the  shifting,  wayward 
million  has  come  into  the.  judgment-seat.  These  law- 
givers of  an  hour,  careless  of  what  is  true,  ever  demand 
something  new,  and  the  popular  writer  prefers  a  first 
place  in  the  meanest  village  to  a  second  in  Rome  itself. 
Tocquexille,  who  in  politics  could  judge  on  the  evi- 
dence, was  the  slave  of  tradition  in  literature.  For  him 
the  seventeenth  century  was  the  last  of  the  great  style, 
and  its  goose-quill  was  the  true  pen  of  gold.  Men 
wrote  for  fame,  he  said,  as  fame  was  bestowed  by  the 
small  but  enlightened  public.  A  century  later  the  pro- 
cess of  disintegration  had  begun.  Manner  took  the 
place  of  matter  ;  ornament  was  added,  since  clearness 
and  brevity  were  no  longer  enough.  In  a  succeeding 
age  the  ornamental  ran  into  the  grotesque,  just  as  the 
clear  style  of  the  old  Norman  architecture  gradually 
became  florid,  and  ultimately  flamboyant.  For  these 
principles  of  liking  and  of  aversion  the  French  Academy 
stands  ;  on  these  principles  it  was  created ;  and,  to  pro- 
mote them,  it  has  become  a  dictionary-maker  only  as  a 

23+ 


ARTISTIC     PARIS 

means  to  an  end.      The  rit^Hit  word  in  literature  is  only 
its  test  of  the  rit^ht  thing-. 

Hence  the  philosophy  of  the  Academic  discourse. 
The  occasions  of  such  discourses  are  easily  found.  A 
member  dies  ;  another  member  takes  his  place.  The 
newcomer  has  to  pronounce  a  eulogy  on  his  predeces- 
sor ;  a  member,  deputed  by  the  Academy,  pronounces 
a  eulogy  on  both.  It  is  merely  an  opportunity  of  show- 
ing by  example  how  a  discourse  shcnild  be  written.  It 
is  a  masterpiece  of  the  most  elaborate  art.  It  must  not 
contain  a  single  expression  foreign  to  the  usage  of  the 
best  writers.  It  must  not  contain  a  single  thought 
that  is  too  obtrusive  in  form  or  in  manner.  It  must  deal 
with  the  whole  subject  as  if  men  dwelt  in  a  paradise  of 
reason,  temper,  urbanity,  taste,  and  all  the  virtues,  set 
off  by  all  the  graces.  It  assumes  the  like  perfection  in 
its  auditory.  The  discourse  is  polished  to  the  last 
turn, —  by  the  writer  himself  in  the  first  instance,  by  the 
Academy  in  the  second, —  until  it  shines  without  glit- 
ter, like  so  much  table-talk  of  the  gods. 

When  M.  Dufaure  departs  this  life,  early  in  the  eigh- 
ties, M.  Cherbuliez  takes  his  place.  M.  Cherbuliez 
pronounces  the  discourse  on  M.  Dufaure.  M.  Renan, 
director  of  the  Academy,  replies  to  M.  Cherbuliez.  M. 
Renan,  after  his  wont,  is  unctuously  appreciative,  can- 
did, tolerant  —  in  short,  everything  that  human  beings 
might  be  if  they  were  able  to  send  in  specifications  for 
their  own  make-up  before  birth.  M.  Cherbuliez  has 
nothing  but  nice  things  to  say  of  M.  Dufaure's  career 
in  politics  and  in  public  life.  M.  Renan  has  nothing 
but  nice  things  to  say  of  M.  Cherbuliez  for  having 
said  them.      "  M.  Dufaure  [I  do  not  translate  literally] 

^3S 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

belonged  to  an  age  when  political  life  was  l)ut  a  tourney 
between  rivals  full  of  courtesy,  who  had  a  jjcrfcct  un- 
derstanding in  regard  to  fundamentals.  lie  could 
make  allowance  for  political  opponents.  He  had  none 
of  the  spirit  of  party  which  was  the  bane  of  politics  later 
on.  To  the  eight  Beatitudes  of  the  Gospel  I  am  some- 
times tempted  to  add  a  ninth:  '  Happy  the  blind,  for 
they  alone  are  sure  of  everything.'  \Vc  thank  you, 
monsieur,  for  having  set  before  us,  in  enduring  praise, 
this  generous  and  noble  character,"  and  so  on.  M. 
Cherbuliez  was  a  Swiss  who  had  become  a  naturalized 
Frenchman,  and  had  joined  his  new  country  shortly 
after  the  war.  It  was  necessary  to  say  as  much  with 
discretion  and  with  taste.  "  How  well  you  chose  your 
hour,  monsieur,  to  attach  yourself  anew  to  a  country 
from  w  hich  you  had  been  separated  by  a  fatal  error  of 
the  politics  of  the  past !  The  issue  of  one  of  our  Prot- 
estant families  compelled  two  centuries  ago  to  choo.se 
between  their  nationality  and  their  freedom  of  thought, 
you  have  always  cherished  an  affectionate  sentiment  for 
the  land  of  your  fathers.  While  France  prospered, 
that  was  enough  for  you.  But  there  came  a  moment 
when  this  venerable  mother,  abandoned  by  those  who 
owed  her  most,  had  to  bear  the  taunt,  '  She  saved  others; 
herself  she  cannot  save.'  On  that  day,  when  ingrati- 
tude became  one  of  the  laws  of  the  world,  you  felt  a 
new  love  for  your  country  of  the  past,  and  you  conse- 
crated your  talent  to  a  vancjuished  cause." 

The  thing  is  said,  in  a  certain  sense,  just  for  the  sake 
of  saying  it,  and  no  one  cares  to  apply  to  it  the  test  of 
sincerity,  so  long  as  it  bears  the  test  of  expression. 
The  Academy  exists  to  get  it  said  well,  and  to  set  off 

236 


A    I-IRST    NIGHT    AT   THE   THKATRF    FRANQAIS 


ARTISTIC     PARIS 

precept  by  exam))le.  The  one  condition,  the  one 
sovereign  obHgation,  is  the  grand  style,  the  grand 
manner.  At  another  time  the  author  of  the  "  Dame 
aux  Camehas"  discourses  on  virtue  at  the  distribution 
of  the  Montyon  prizes.  His  tongue  may  be  in  his 
cheek  all  the  while,  but  it  does  not  spoil  his  accent, 
and  that  is  enough. 

The  evil  is  that  the  Academy  has  brought  this  solici- 
tude for  form  so  far  that  some  who  live  by  its  laws  have 
hardly  a  word  to  bless  themselves  with.  They  are  like 
those  masters  of  fence  who  are  afflicted  with  a  sort  of 
paralysis  of  the  power  to  attack.  With  the  everlasting 
refinement  of  style,  the  writing  of  Academic  French  has 
become  the  labor  of  a  lifetime.  You  had  better  say 
nothing  than  say  anything  less  than  perfectly  well. 
Hence  a  misunderstanding  between  the  Academy  and 
the  world  that  is  \ery  much  like  the  misunderstanding 
between  the  church  and  the  world.  The  Academy  is 
apt  to  be  remote,  unfriended,  melancholy,  slow  in  regard 
to  the  time-spirit  as  it  moves.  It  clutches  now  and  then 
at  the  skirts  of  a  celebrity  just  to  show  that  it  is  not 
altogether  out  of  the  running,  but,  in  its  heart  of  hearts, 
it  would  fain  do  without  him  and  resume  its  quietism  of 
the  worship  of  ancestors.  It  recognizes  no  books  that 
are  not  formally  sent  in  for  its  approval.  It  never  seeks 
out  a  work,  but  waits  until  the  author  inxitcs  a  judg- 
ment ;  and  if  he  is  too  proud  or  too  modest  to  present 
himself  before  the  judgment-seat,  it  leaves  him  without 
notice.  Hence,  as  M.  Zola  complained,  in  a  notable 
diatribe,  it  affects  ignorance  of  nearly  the  whole  body 
of  contemporary  literature.  Only  the  mediocrities,  it  is 
said,  send  in  for  the  ceremony  of  the  "  coronation,"  and, 

239 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

necessarily,  none  but  they  receive  the  crown.  With  ail 
this,  the  Academy  is  true,  after  a  fashion,  to  the  purpose 
of  its  being — the  production  of  the  perfect  gentleman  of 
the  printed  page,  a  perfect  gentleman,  it  may  be  re- 
marked, who  enjoys  a  good  deal  of  latitude  of  manners 
when  out  of  his  uniform  of  pen  and  ink. 

The  drama  and  music  are  other  great  interests  backed 
by  other  great  institutions.  The  state  does  just  as  much 
for  them  as  it  does  for  the  vine,  the  beet,  or  the  codfish. 
It  subventions  them,  when  needful,  keeps  them  in  good 
technical  repair.  It  helps  the  stage  of  Paris  by  helping 
the  Frangais  and  the  Odeon,  as  also  the  Conservatoire 
in  the  dramatic  department  of  that  multiplex  personality. 
These  things  in  France  are  of  such  as  go  on  forever. 
For  all  that,  there  are  changes,  and  the  most  wholesome 
of  them  is  that  the  actor  is  rapidly  acquiring  a  proper 
social  status.  He  has  yet  to  acquire  it  full)  :  to  this  day, 
in  this  land  of  players,  the  player  is  still  under  a  ban. 
Many  affect  to  regard  him  as  merely  a  cabotiii  —  a 
stroller,  or  barn-stormer,  to  wit.  ( )f  course  they  do  it 
only  w  hen  they  are  angry,  and  when  they  do  it,  they 
know  that  they  are  doing  wrong. 

When  Octave  Mirbeau,  forgetful  of  the  time  of  day, 
once  wrote  an  insolent  attack  on  the  profession,  a  hundred 
challenges  came  to  him  by  return  of  post,  and  he  seemed 
to  stand  in  a  ring  of  s\\  ords  that  were  by  no  means  the 
toys  of  the  property-roorii.  Yet  there  was  quite  a  com- 
motion in  the  Le<.rion  of  Honor  when  Got,  the  veteran 
of  the  Frangais,  received  the  Cross  —  Got,  who  had  done 
so  very  much  for  French  culture  and  happiness.  How- 
ever, it  frightened  the  minister,  and  he  held  back  a  like 
decoration  which  Got's  comrade,  Delaunay,  thought  he 

240 


ARTISTIC    PARIS 

had  every  right  to  expect.  The  disappointed  artist 
took  strong  measures.  He  announced  his  retirement, 
and  began  to  give  farewell  performances.  The  Fran- 
gais  could  not  do  without  him,  and  the  repentant  minis- 
ter had  to  come  down  in  a  hurry  and  decorate  him 
behind  the  scenes.  Perhaps  the  highest  register  of  rec- 
ognition was  attained  when  Coquelin  was  seen  arm  in 
arm  with  (iambetta  at  the  height  of  his  power.  Before 
that,  the  dramatic  patronage  of  great  men  was  con- 
fined exclusively  to  the  ladies  of  the  stage,  and  was 
more  or  less  without  prejudice  to  the  denial  of  social 
claims. 

The  new  state  of  things  has  its  attendant  evils.  If 
you  bring  the  actor  into  the  great  world,  he  naturally 
wishes  to  live  according  to  its  laws,  and  that  costs 
money.  A  fine  house,  a  dainty  picture-gallery, — 
Coquelin  has  one  of  the  choicest  in  this  line,  —  and 
stylish  entertainments  are  essentially  things  of  price. 
So,  of  late  years,  there  has  been  a  tendency  among  lead- 
ing actors  to  break  away  from  the  Frangais,  or  to  in- 
troduce the  starring  system,  for  their  own  benefit,  into 
the  House  of  Moliere.  The  old  system  —  happily,  it 
ought  rather  to  be  called  the  still  existing  one  —  was 
altogether  against  that  practice.  The  company  was  a 
community,  and,  though  there  were  some  differences  in 
the  pay  according  to  talent  and  standing,  all  full  mem- 
bers shared  profits  in  due  proportion.  They  were 
theoretically  equal,  and  sometimes  the  most  distin- 
guished of  them  gave  practical  proof  of  it  by  taking  the 
humblest  parts.  Once  in  the  brotherhood,  you  were 
never  to  be  out  of  it,  except  by  your  own  default  of  con- 
duct or  desire.     You  could  look  forward  to  a  pension 

241 


PARIS    OF    TO-DAY 

and  a  handsome  lump  sum  on  retirement,  and  the  bonus 
made  a  substantial  addition  to  your  salary. 

Sarah  Bernhardt  was  the  first  to  tire  of  this.  She 
listened  to  the  tempter  who  invited  her  to  star  for  her 
own  benefit  in  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe,  and  she 
broke  loose  from  the  great  house  by  the  simple  process 
of  breaking  her  engagement.  The  administration  sued 
her ;  she  was  cast  in  heavy  damages ;  she  never  paid 
them,  and  she  never  came  back.  Coquelin,  tempted  in 
the  same  way,  quarreled  with  his  mates  because  they 
denied  him  long  vacations,  which  it  was  notorious  he 
meant  to  use  by  starring  on  his  own  account. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  present  reconstruction  of 
the  Frangais  may  include  some  better  provision  for  the 
security  of  the  historic  treasures.  They  symbolize  the 
history  of  the  French  stage  in  their  paintings,  engrav- 
ings, drawings,  marbles,  each  a  memory  of  a  rich  and 
glorious  past.  The  mere  historical  properties  are 
worthy  of  a  state  museum.  The  walking-sticks  have 
been  actual  playthings  of  generations  of  dandies  who 
have  lived  for  "the  nice  conduct  of  a  clouded  cane." 
The  bell  that  sounds  the  death-knell  in  "  Marion  De- 
lorme  "  is  fabled  as  the  \cry  bell  that  gave  the  signal 
for  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew.  The  arm-chair 
in  which  Moliere  had  his  fatal  seizure  while  playing  in 
his  own  piece  is  still  used  in  "  Le  Malade  Imaginaire." 
The  company  of  such  a  house  is  bound  to  take  itself 
seriously,  and  this  one  does  so.  At  a  rehearsal  of 
"  Ruy  Bias,"  I  once  saw  them  dispute  by  the  hour  as 
to  the  particular  way  in  which  a  handkerchief  should  be 
dropped  and  a  handkerchief  picked  up  again.  When 
Mounet-Sully  was  disposed  to  be  a  little  too  noisy  in 

242 


'UBI.U:   COMPF.TITION    AT   THE  CONSERVATOIRE 


ARTISTIC     PARIS 

an  invocation  to  a  departed  spirit,  he  was  reminded  that 
it  was  hopeless  to  attempt  to  call  the  hero  from  his 
grave.  They  still  play  the  "  Malade  "  on  an  almost 
absolutely  bare  stage,  just  as  they  did  when  it  was 
written,  but  in  many  of  the  modern  pieces  they  now 
condescend  to  fine  scenery.  The  late  M.  Sarcey  was 
forever  worrying  the  administration  on  this  point,  and 
at  last  they  met  him  half-w^ay,  but  still  only  half.  The 
decorations  are  always  kept  in  a  certain  classic  subordi- 
nation to  the  te.xt  and  the  playing.  The  "  fashionable 
night,"  when  the  best  seats  are  let  to  persons  who  are 
known  by  their  names  rather  than  by  their  works,  is 
another  concession  to  the  spirit  of  the  age.  In  the  old 
days  every  night  was  a  night  of  really  noteworthy 
people  who  had  dropped  in,  not  to  be  seen,  but  only  to 
see  the  play.  The  first  night  is  still  what  it  has  ever 
been,  one  of  the  most  wonderful  scenes  of  civilized  life. 
The  other  state  theater  in  Paris,  the  Odeon,  occupies 
a  lower  rank.  It  is  sometimes  used  as  a  sort  of  half- 
way house  between  the  Francais  and  the  outer  world, 
where  plays  or  authors  on  which  the  greater  institution 
has  its  eye  may  be  tried  without  a  compromise  of 
dignity.  With  this  view,  M.  Antoine,  the  actor- 
manager  of  the  Theatre  Libre,  was  once  made  director 
of  the  Odeon.  He  represented  much  that  the  Francais 
hated,  but  the  public  were  beginning  to  take  to  him, 
and  it  was  thought  prudent  to  give  him  a  trial.  He  had 
an  idea  of  a  totally  new  kind  of  drama, —  realistic, 
naturalistic,  or  what  not, — in  which  the  stage  was  to  be 
little  more  than  an  enlarged  photograph  of  actual  life, 
with  humdrum  verities  just  as  they  pass.  This  was  a 
reaction  against  the  highly  wrought  constructive  drama 

24.5 


PARIS    OF     rO-DAV 

of  Sardou,  and  the  still  more  highly  wrought  philosophi- 
cal drama  of  Dumas,  wherein  everything  is  arranged  to 
a  given  end.  The  Prancais  itself,  I  remember,  toyed 
with  the  innovation  by  mounting  a  piece  of  Henri 
Becque  called  "  Les  Corbeaux,"  which  was  all  but 
sterile  of  incident,  and  as  tailless  as  a  Manx  cat.  There 
was  no  end  to  speak  of,  and  no  plot,  except  that 
a  rascally  lawyer,  who  had  ruined  a  family,  took  a 
fancy  to  one  of  the  daughters,  and  won  her,  though 
she  despised  him  with  all  her  heart.  She  married 
just  to  save  the  others,  and  the  exasperating  curtain  fell 
without  any  reward  of  \irtue  or  punishment  of  \ice. 
The  author's  theory  was  that  so  things  happen  in  real 
life.  He  was  equally  faithful  to  reality  in  the  dialogue, 
which  seldom  rose  abo\'e  utter  commonplace. 

It  did  not  answer.  But  Antoine,  who  was  of 
Becque's  school,  had  better  fortune,  owing  to  the  star- 
tling novelty  of  his  histrionic  method.  He  held  that 
character  should  be  represented,  not  in  its  many-sided- 
ness, but  in  its  dominant  note,  and  that  this  insistent 
Leitmotiv  should  be  kept  remorselessly  before  the  audi- 
ence in  every  detail  of  the  performance.  Since  then 
there  have  been  all  sorts  of  other  experiments  —  in 
dramatic  symbolism,  dramatic  mysticism,  and  anything 
else  you  please.  Such  things  may  be  right  or  wrong, 
but  they  are  the  life  of  art,  as  laboratory  work  is  the 
life  of  science.  The  artist  who  has  ceased  to  be  curious 
has  entered  upon  his  decline. 

Music  is  cared  for  in  much  the  same  way.  The 
French  Opera  is  not  merely  for  performances.  It  is  an 
Academy  of  Music,  and  that  is  its  full  title.  It  is  sub- 
ventioned  by   the  state  as   one   of  the   great  teaching 

246 


ARllSllC     TARIS 

institutions  —  a  sort  of  school  of  application  for  the 
Conservatoire.  The  house  is  somethinsj  of  a  white 
elephant,  for  its  keep  is  dear.      It  has  sometimes  ruined 


l\    THK    Rl-AOlNTi-ROOM    AT    THI-    NATIONAI.    LIBRARY 

directors  who  have  held  under  the  state  on  the  system 
of  a  public  grant  in  aid  for  expenses,  supplemented  by 
their  own  private  investments.  The  state  makes  too 
many  conditions.  The  Opera  has  too  many  privileges. 
The  ladies  of  the  ballet,  nay,  the  very  scene-shifters  in 


PARIS    OF     lO-DAY 

their  corporate  capacity,  are  sometimes  a  thorn  in  the 
flesh  to  manafjers.  The  buildin*^  itself  entails  enor- 
mous  expense,  and  its  palatial  splendors  are  by  no 
means  confined  to  the  front  of  the  house.  The  green- 
room of  the  dance  is  a  marvel  of  painting,  carving,  and 
all  the  allied  arts.  The  ballets  themselves  are  an  es- 
sential part  of  the  performance,  for  the  Opera  is  a  school 
of  dancing  as  well  as  a  school  of  music. 

The  Conservatory  of  Music  is  managed  in  much  the 
same  way  as  the  School  of  Fine  Arts.  The  students 
get  the  best  teaching  in  the  world.  They,  too,  have 
their  Prix  de  Rome,  or  great  traveling  studentship,  and 
they  compete  for  it  by  an  cittrce  cii  loge.  They  are 
shut  up  for  some  days  in  close  custody  for  the  com- 
position of  a  cantata,  and  the  winning  piece  is  finally 
performed  at  the  Institute.  Some  of  the  greatest  mu- 
sicians of  the  time  take  the  classes,  or  sit  in  judgment 
on  the  work.  It  is  sometimes  a  tedious  task,  as  one 
and  the  same  composition  is  rendered  over  and  over 
again  by  successive  students.  Auber,  it  is  said,  used 
to  sit  up  the  whole  night  before  the  competition,  just 
to  sharpen  his  appetite  for  sleep  for  the  following  after- 
noon. It  is  not  true,  though  that  consideration,  of 
course,  has  scarcely  any  place  in  the  ethics  of  anecdote. 
Its  defect  lies  in  the  falsity  to  character  and  circum- 
stance. The  note  of  the  race  is  its  devotion  to  art.  Art 
is  almost  the  only  real- priesthood  left  in  France,  and 
by  that,  or  nothing.  Frenchmen  hope  to  be  saved.  In 
its  various  forms  it  is  regarded  as  a  working  substitute 
for  religion.  It  probably  is  not,  in  the  full  measure  in 
which  they  pin  their  faith  to  it ;  but  that  is  nothing  to 
the  purpose.  They  think  it  is.  It  might  become  so, 
if  they  suffered  it  to  recover  its  old  alliance  with  moral 

248 


ARTISIIC:     PARIS 

ideals.  But  they  have  banished  these  from  the  partner- 
ship, forgetting  that  mere  exercises  in  virtuosity  can 
never  sufifice  to  the  spirit  of  man.  The  point  is  that, 
in  things  which  they  regard  as  serious,  the  French 
are  among  the  most  serious  and  purposeful  peoples  in 
the  world.  Their  position  in  literature,  in  painting,  in 
music,  in  the  sciences,  is  theirs  by  no  accident.  They 
work  for  it  with  their  whole  heart  and  soul,  and  adapt 
means  to  ends  as  patiently  as  the  maker  of  a  watch. 
They  are  a  people  founded  in  institutions  ;  when  they 
come  to  grief,  it  is  because  the  institutions  have  got  out 
of  repair.  The  fate  reserved  for  them  in  the  providence 
of  God  is  God's  secret.  Whatev-er  it  be,  they  may  say 
w^ith  Dryden,  in  his  noble  paraphrase : 

Not  Heaven  itself  upon  the  past  has  power ; 

But  what  has  been,  has  been,  ;uk1  I  have  had  mv  hour. 


A  "monome"  (procession  of  students) 

249 


r\ 


_,..,tsru.lTY 


^^ 


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^^"000  8S0^^°    ' 


J^f-i^^^t^^ 


PARIS  OF  TO-DAY 

BY    RICHARD     WHITEING 


■^-.-x* 


& 


Mnr^M 


^ty^iwyivwiiv 


i^T 


WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS    BY 
ANDRE      CAS  T A I ON  E 


